The Houston Zoo is home to a lot of animals, and some of them are often overlooked. This series of blog entries is focused on the animals that you may have missed on your last visit.
King Vulture at the Houston Zoo
In a large exhibit tucked into a corner of the Fischer Bird Garden is a bird that is unique among its relatives. King Vultures are very similar to other vultures in many respects. They have a naked head to help them keep clean when they tear into a carcass, they go to the bathroom down their legs to cool off, and along with other New World vultures, they are more closely related to storks then to hawks and eagles.
Unlike their relatives, however, the King Vultures have brightly colored skin on their faces and necks. It takes several years for a vulture to get these colors; juveniles are slate gray with pale skin until they start to look like the adults at age 3, and gradually gain their full adult plumage by age 5 or 6. Also unusual among their relatives is their poor sense of smell. King Vultures have to follow other, smaller vultures to carcasses, and then they often act like bullies, chasing the smaller birds off.
This behavior is one possible source for the bird’s common name of “king;” the other is Mayan legend, which portrays the bird as a king that carries messages between humans and the gods. As a rainforest bird found through Central and South America, the Mayan people probably saw them frequently, and the symbol of the bird was a glyph used in Mayan writing.
We have one female King Vulture at the Houston Zoo. If you want to find her on your next visit, turn left as soon as you walk into the Fischer Bird Garden. That first large exhibit is hers, and she usually prefers to spend her time on the left side of it.
Of course, no animal is guaranteed to be visible on every visit. Even if you know where to look, you might still miss the animal if it is off exhibit or hiding especially well when you visit. Our King Vulture often has access to the back part of her exhibit. But this amazing bird, with her rainbow of colors, is hard to miss when she is out!