Why turkey vultures?

Turkey vultures have no sexual dimorphism-- in other words, you can't tell whether
any given bird is a he or a she based on size or plumage. If you really want to know, is it
a boy or a girl?, you have to stretch them out and get all up in their business.

You could also tell if you caught them mating, or saw an egg-laying female in the very process
of laying. Otherwise, they pretty much act the same-- caring for their young, going on about their
vulture business. Same-sex bonded pairs have been noted. A bonded male-male couple in a zoo
took perfect care of an incubated chick, and raised it to adulthood.

Turkey vultures seem to manage just fine this way.

Also-- maybe tangential to this project, but probably not: I do like how they don't kill, even to eat. They
sociably consume thoroughly dead things. They are scent hunters. When you spot them circling
in the air, they are not looking for some creature thrashing in its final death throes.
They are sniffing for gases released by decomposition.

There are more fascinating things about them still. It is probably pertinent to mention
that people generally don't like them much. And that their primary defense mechanism is to vomit
up what last they ate. If a predator isn't interested in the free meal, it is probably horrified
by the scent or even burned by the intense vulture bile.

Oh-- last but not least. When you look at a turkey vulture in profile, you can see right through
the nose to the sky beyond. Nostrils just don't work for a lifestyle of rooting in carrion,
so they don't have them.

back to gender studies