Gypaetus barbatus
The bearded vulture, also known as the lammergeier and ossifrage, is a very large bird of prey in the monotypic genus Gypaetus. The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone.

Giles Laurent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- bearded vulturePBDB
- Sits inside
- GypaetusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Accipitridae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Accipitridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Accipitridae
- Mass
- 6.18 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
9 occurrences of Gypaetus barbatus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
9 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holocene1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Gypaetus barbatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Gypaetus barbatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
181 taxa- Corvus monedula6 sites
- Pyrrhocorax graculus5 sites
- Columba livia4 sites
- Corvus corax4 sites
- Scolopax rusticola4 sites
- Falco tinnunculus3 sites
- Garrulus glandarius3 sites
- Perdix perdix3 sites
- Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax3 sites
- Turdus3 sites
- Accipiter gentilis2 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos2 sites
- Athene noctua2 sites
- Buteo buteo2 sites
- Candiacervus listeri2 sites
- Chloris chloris2 sites
- Columba oenas2 sites
- Columba palumbus2 sites
- Corvus2 sites
- Corvus corone2 sites
- Coturnix coturnix2 sites
- Haliaeetus albicilla2 sites
- Lagopus muta2 sites
- Oenanthe hispanica2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Gypaetus barbatus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- The Quaternary avifauna of Crete, Greece3
- Bird remains from Curata and Bordu Mare caves (Romania)2
- The late Pleistocene fossil avian remains from Grotta dei Fiori, Carbonia (SW Sardinia, Italy)1
- Une faune tres diversifee du Pleistocene inferieur de la Sierra de Quibas (province de Murcia, Espagne)1
- Biostratigraphy of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Corsica and the role of man in the Holocene faunal turnover1
- La grotte de l'Observatoire à Monaco1
Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Gypaetus barbatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Giles Laurent
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Gypaetus barbatus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGypaetus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)