Scientist explains why Only Vultures Can Eat The Most Odd Meals On EARth

The world’s largest bird of prey, the Eurasian black vulture, is built tougher than the rest of us, finds a new genetic study.
Published in the journal Genome Biology, the study determined that the over-30-pound bird’s unique genetic makeup allows it to digest even the most putrid of carcasses. The bird can also guard itself against nearly every known pathogen.

     “It is known that they are all but immune to botulism and that they can happily eat the flesh of an animal coated in Bacillus anthracis that causes anthrax,” co-author Jong Bhak of The Genome Institute in Korea told Discovery News.
Bhak added, “They also have no problem eating an animal infected with rabies, hog cholera and numerous other diseases that would ultimately be lethal to most other scavengers.”

   The study presents the first-ever sequenced genome of an Old World vulture. The researchers compared the genome of the Eurasian black vulture, Aegypius monachus, to that of the closely related North American bald eagle and turkey vulture. The scientists found genetic signatures of the dietary and environmental adaptations that enable the Eurasian black vulture’s scavenging lifestyle.
Co-author Yun Sung Cho of the Genome Institute told Discovery News that the vulture has “specific amino acid changes on genes associated with gastric acid secretion.”
Bhak said that the vulture’s stomach is probably acidic enough to melt metals, and is among the highest in acid content for all animals.
“The acidity seems related to (eating) carrion, rather than digesting hard food,” Bhak explained.

    Vultures are social birds, helping each other to spot carcasses from the air. They will often circle over a target area, honing in on the precise spot and scoping out the surrounding territory. The Eurasian black vulture, also known as the cinereous vulture, is one of the world’s heaviest flying birds. It is a wonder that their hefty bodies can even stay airborne, revealing how strong their long wings are.

   Although the birds are quite social, as this image of a flock indicates, there often isn’t enough carrion to go around. This is especially true when considering that vultures are not the only scavengers in their territories.
“To sustain their body sizes, they should take whatever is available and compete against large land predators by growing a body mass that’s even larger,” Cho said. There are drawbacks to being a big bird, however.
As Cho said, their “large body size makes them less efficient to hunt prey, making them feed even more on carrion.”

          All of the vultures in this flock have ironclad stomachs. Other birds with extremely acidic stomachs include the common buzzard (1.1 pH), white-back vulture (1.2 pH), bald eagle (1.3 pH) and peregrine falcon (1.8 pH).
Bhak said to consider that battery acid has a pH of .8, which is very close to that of scavenging birds and certain other birds of prey.