06/10/2026
Meet the King Vulture 👑🦅
With its striking colors and impressive presence, this remarkable species is always an exciting sight in the Costa Rican rainforest.
Yes, vultures devour rotting flesh. The acid in their digestive system is about 100 times more acidic than human digestive juices, with a pH that borders on zero.
When vultures consume and neutralize pathogens, not only does it permit vultures to eat pretty much anything but it also enables vultures to cleanse the environment of disease vectors.
This doesn’t mean that vultures completely eliminate disease-causing pathogens, but a healthy population of vultures is able to reduce the pathogen burden in an ecosystem.
Read more about these amazing birds on our journal.