Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus)

[guppiecat]

This is a vulture. This is obviously a vulture to anyone who has ever seen a vulture anywhere.

Nonetheless, this bird is also known as a “gier-eagle” (derived from the Hebrew root for “to love”, reflecting that the birds live in mated pairs.) It is listed as an unclean animal in Deuteronomy 14:17 and Leviticus 11:13.

Yet, for some reason, it is also known as a “Pharaoh’s chicken”, though the Internet is rather less enlightening as to why except that it might be the fault of Henry Hunter (1741–1802) of the Church of Scotland.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Comments

[carbonel]

Huh. "Gier" must be a synonym that I'm not familiar with; the common Hebrew root for "love" is aleph-hay-vav, "ohav."

Also, I thought the most salient feature of vultures is the naked neck, so they can stick their heads into carcasses without having the feathers ruffled the wrong way. This one has a feathery neck. So it is not obviously a vulture to me.

[guppiecat]

The naked neck is more common in new world vultures than it is in old world vultures. Also, just an interesting bit, scientists now think they were wrong to believe the lack of feathers were to help stay cleaner during scavenging. Turns out that it might be for easier thermo-regulation.

To me, vultures are identified by the beak, feeding habits, and flying pattern. They guy has a very vulturey beak.