Bearded vultures are often known as bone breakers. The local names for Europe’s rarest vulture reflects this specialist diet: Quebrantahuesos in Spanish, Quebraossos in Portuguese, Trencalós in Catalan and Casseur d´Os in Old French.
Colleagues in Andalucia caught Gea, one of the two young bearded vulture that fledged successfully from wild nests this summer, learning to eat bones. Watch it here, a fascinating watch.
80 percent of a bearded vulture’s diet consists of bones and bone marrow and with highly acidic digestive fluids Gea will make short work of this large leg bone, digesting it in just 24 hours.
