The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is the only known animal that lives on an 80-90% diet of bones. That’s right — this intimidating-looking bird specializes in feeding on bone marrow.
The Bearded Vulture is a bone eater and bone crusher
This bird of prey is so desperate for bone that it’ll fly a dead carcass as high as 500 feet into the sky and release it over rocks to break the bones into more edible pieces. The vulture eats the smaller bones by simply swallowing them whole.
The rock sites where the bearded vulture devours the larger broken bones are called ossuaries. This great scavenger ensures nothing in nature goes to waste; it even snacks on lizards and turtles.
The bearded vulture can grow up to four feet tall with a nine-foot wingspan. When soaring in the high mountains of southern Europe, Africa, or Tibet, it looks like a flying dragon.
