All items sold on this website are polyurethane resin replicas, made in USA. No real or natural bone is available on this site.
S. Papa Skull Replica or King Vulture measures 4.4 inches, museum quality polyurethane cast made in USA. S. Papa Skull Replica is 2-part skull (separate cranium and jaw).
The S. Papa or King vulture eats anything from cattle carcasses down to corpses of monkeys and other arboreal mammals to beached fish and dead lizards.
In densely forested areas, mammals likely to be included are many of the abundant sloths whose combined ranges coincide largely with that of this vulture, but elsewhere it has adapted well to domestic livestock.
Principally a carrion eater, there are isolated reports of S. Papa killing and eating injured animals, newborn calves, and small lizards. Although it locates food by vision, the role smell has in how it specifically finds carrion has been debated.
Consensus has been that S. Papa does not detect odors, and instead follows the smaller turkey and greater yellow-headed vultures, which do have a sense of smell, to a carcass.
The S. Papa or King vulture primarily eats carrion found in the forest, though it is known to venture onto nearby savannas in search of food. Once it has found a carcass, the King vulture displaces the other vultures because of its large size and strong bill.
When it is at the same kill as the larger Andean condor, the S. Papa or King vulture always defers to it. Using its bill to tear, it makes the initial cut in a fresh carcass. This allows the smaller, weaker-beaked vultures, which can not open the hide of a carcass, access to the carcass after the King vulture has fed.
An imposing bird, the adult King Vulture has predominantly white plumage, which has a slight rose-yellow tinge to it. In stark contrast, the wing coverts, flight feathers and tail are dark grey to black, as is the prominent thick neck ruff. The head and neck are devoid of feathers, the skin shades of red and purple on the head, vivid orange on the neck and yellow on the throat.
On the head, the skin is wrinkled and folded, and there is a highly noticeable irregular golden crest attached on the cere above its orange and black bill; this caruncle does not fully form until the bird’s fourth year.
The S. Papa or King vulture has, relative to its size, the largest skull and braincase, and strongest bill, of the New World vultures. This bill has a hooked tip and a sharp cutting edge. The bird has broad wings and a short, broad, and square tail.
The irises of its eyes are white and bordered by bright red sclera. Unlike some New World vultures, the King Vulture lacks eyelashes. It also has gray legs and long, thick claws.
The vulture’s tongue is rasp-like, which allows it to pull flesh off of the carcass’s bones. Generally, it only eats the skin and harder parts of the tissue of its meal. The King vulture has also been recorded eating fallen fruit of the moriche palm when carrion is scarce in Bolívar state, Venezuela.
The reproductive behavior of the S. Papa or King vulture in the wild is poorly known, and much knowledge has been gained from observing birds in captivity, particularly at the Paris Menagerie.
An adult S. Papa or King Vulture sexually matures when it is about four or five years old, with females maturing slightly earlier than males. The birds mainly breed during the dry season.
A King vulture mates for life and generally lays a single unmarked white egg in its nest in a hollow in a tree. To ward off potential predators, the vultures keep their nests foul-smelling.
Both parents incubate the egg for 52 to 58 days before it hatches. If the egg is lost, it will often be replaced after about six weeks.
The parents share incubating and brooding duties until the chick is about a week old, after which they often stand guard rather than brood.
The young S. Papa or King vulture chicks are semi-altricial, they are helpless when born but are covered in downy feathers (truly altricial birds are born naked), and their eyes are open at birth.
Developing quickly, the chicks are fully alert by their second day, able to beg and wriggle around the nest, preen themselves, and peck by their third day.
S. Papa start growing their second coat of white down by day 10 and stand on their toes by day 20. From one to three months of age, chicks walk around and explore the vicinity of the nest, and take their first flights at about three months of age.
