A team of zoologists from Dublin's Trinity College School of Natural Sciences has found that some vultures take advantage of the greater natural abilities of other raptors to locate their food sources and, if possible, grab the best portions with minimal effort. , that is, as if they were served on a tray.
In their research, the scientists used a combination of theoretical models that describe how the behavior of groups of individuals competing for the same goal is expected to evolve and field data obtained from observations of two species of vultures that inhabit Kenya.
As they describe in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, as they find it completely unpredictable where their food will be found or its availability, these animals follow raptor and steppe eagles , which have a more vision sharp and can detect earlier the corpses on which they also feed.
What's more, they wait patiently for them to force their way through the toughest parts of bodies with their strong beaks until they reach the remains that are most palatable to them. At that time, the vultures, which tend to congregate in large numbers, use their numerical superiority to drive the eagle away from the area and eat, so to speak, "at the table."
These experts emphasize that the finding could have important implications regarding the conservation of vultures, which in some areas of the world are highly threatened.
