Scientific Classification

KINGDOM: Animalia

PHYLUM: Chordata

CLASS: Aves

ORDER: Accipitriformes

FAMILY: Accipitridae

GENUS: Neophron

SPECIES: N. percnopterus

Conservation Status

Fluffed out Egyptian Vulture
Color photograph with a Egyptian vulture close up
Egyptian Vulture (Neophron Percnopterus) resting on cliff
Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) flying over the land

Egyptian vultures are one of the smallest in their family with the females being slightly larger. From beak to tail feathers, they can reach a little over 2 feet long and weigh between 3 to 6 pounds.

All Egyptian vultures have white plumage with black, pointed flight feathers, but vultures in the wild tend to have a browner shade to their white from the iron-rich soil.

Their bill is long and slender with the upper part hooked.

The legs of adult Egyptian vultures are pink while juveniles have gray legs. Their claws are long and straight allowing them to easily tear apart their food.

The Egyptian vulture is a vulture species found throughout the Iberian Peninsula, India, and North Africa. They can survive in a variety of habitats such as savannas, forests, coastal plains, and more.
Egyptian vultures are scavengers, rarely hunting weak or injured small animals. Their preferred diet is dung, the carcasses of small critters, eggs, and rotten fruit or vegetables. These vultures hunt during the day, sometimes flying up to 80 miles in search of food. If it comes upon a kill that other vultures or animals are enjoying, the Egyptian vulture will wait its turn on the fringes.
Egyptian vultures are normally solitary animals that come together in the spring for mating and raising chicks. Couple are usually monogamous and will build the nest and care for the chicks together. Female Egyptian vultures will usually lay 2 eggs that hatch a little after 40 days. The chicks depend on its parents for food for 3 months before they start joining their parents on food explorations. Once the fledglings are old enough to forage on their own, they will look for their own territories, eventually getting their adult plumage after 4 years.

Sometimes called the pharaoh’s chicken, the Egyptian vulture used to be worshipped by pharaohs for their ability to remove garbage or dead animals.

Egyptian vultures are known to use tools such as rounded rocks to break open large eggs for food. It has been found that this skill is not observed and learned through other birds but is innate. If you put an Egyptian vulture in a room with a large egg and some pebbles, it will pick up a pebble and break the egg. Besides this, Egyptian vultures will also use twigs to gather wool to line their nests.