| Gyps | |
|---|---|
 Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) | |
| Scientific Classification | |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Aves |
| Order | Accipitriformes |
| Family | Accipitridae |
| Genus | Gyps |
Gyps is a genus of Old World vultures in the Accipitridae family.
These are the typical vultures, with bald head, broad wings and mainly dark plumage. They are large scavenging birds, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals. Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight. Representatives of this group are found throughout warmer parts of the Old World.
Compared to other vultures, Gyps species have quite feathered heads, with characteristic downy covers. Indeed, rather than being an adaptation for scavenging as once thought, it seems to be related to thermoregulation.
A prehistoric species is known only from fossil remains found in Middle to Late Pleistocene sites all over the central and eastern Mediterranean: Gyps melitensis. Recently, a fossil species Gyps bochenskii has been described from the late wikipedia:Pliocene in Bulgaria.
Species[]
It contains the following species:
White-backed Vulture (Salvadori, 1865) (Gyps africanus) White-rumped Vulture (Gmelin, 1788) (Gyps bengalensis) Cape Vulture (Forster, 1798) (Gyps coprotheres) Griffon Vulture (Hablizl, 1783) (Gyps fulvus) Himalayan Vulture (Hume, 1869) (Gyps himalayensis) Indian Vulture (Scopoli, 1786) (Gyps indicus) Rüppell's Vulture (Brehm, 1852) (Gyps rueppelli) Slender-billed Vulture (Hodgson, 1844) (Gyps tenuirostris)