11 Jaw-Dropping Facts About the Bone-Eating Bearded Vulture

2. Diet of Bones

A staggering 80% of the bearded vulture’s diet consists of bones and bone marrow. Its powerful stomach acid, with a pH of about 1, enables it to digest bones in under 24 hours. These scavengers often drop carcasses from great heights to break them into smaller, more digestible pieces. Bearded vultures also consume small lizards and turtles, adding some variety to their bone-centric diet.

Bearded vultures have developed a unique method for consuming bones. After finding a carcass that other scavengers have picked clean, they carry the remaining bones high into the sky and drop them onto rocks below. This behavior not only shatters the bones into manageable pieces but also exposes the nutritious marrow inside. These specialized feeding sites are known as ossuaries, and the birds return to them regularly.