Crested Battlefield Condor
Basic Information
Anatomy
The Crested Battlefield Condor is a massive bird with a large, sharp beak, mostly bare head decorated with a fleshy crest, and large feet with highly dexterous toes. Their nostrils are quite raised on their beaks and quite large compared to many other birds, as are their ears, suggesting they have highly developed senses of smell and hearing. Males and females both have crests and are similar in size, making sexing them difficult.
Biological Traits
They lack vocal organs and are only capable of loud shrill hissing, which is often only done when threatened. Battlefield Condors are also known to vomit and defecate on people and animals who try to drive them off from a carcass.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Like most condors and vultures, the Battlefield Condor primarily feeds on the scavenged remains of other animals, but will also eat garbage, rotting fruit, and the occasionally small vertebrates such as mice, lizards, and small birds if available, although they rarely actively hunt. The species gets its name for their habit of following armies to battlefields, which often become a buffet for the birds and they have been known to descend on fallen soldiers' corpses while conflicts are still in full swing.
Additional Information
Social Structure
These birds do not have a strong social structure, but will tolerate a great number of their own kind around carcasses and do not typically compete with one another. They also tolerate smaller carrion feeders relatively easily, often allowing them to pick at carcasses first in order to open them so they themselves can feed.
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Due to their great eyesight and habit of following armies, the species is often used as a marker of where battles are taking place and as a way of spotting ambushes during war. During some conflicts historically, the birds have been shot at for following groups of soldiers to prevent them from giving away their positions.
Facial characteristics
Like most vultures and condors, much of their heads and faces are bald and fleshy, although this species in particular has a large fleshy crest starting at the beak and ending midway down their neck. Generally, it is a pale yellow to pink color, but when threatened, the condors will shake their heads and flush the crests with blood, filling specialty sacs in them with blood to turn it a bright red color, thought to scare off competitors and predators such as bears.
Conservation Status
Threatened
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Black feathers, with a pale yellow to deep red head.
Geographic Distribution
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