The adult is mostly dark gray, rusty, and whitish in color. The gait on the ground is waddling and the feet are large and powerful. It has a generally elongated, slender shape, sometimes appearing bulkier due to the often hunched back of these birds. This species is relatively small-headed, although its neck is powerful and thick. Unlike most vultures, the bearded vulture does not have a bald head. The proportions of the species have been compared to a falcon, scaled to an enormous size. The tarsus is relatively small for the bird's size, at 8.8–10 cm (3.5–3.9 in). The tail is longer than the width of the wing. It is essentially unmistakable with other vultures or indeed other birds in flight due to its long, narrow wings, with the wing chord measuring 71.5–91 cm (28.1–35.8 in), and long, wedge-shaped tail, which measures 42.7–52 cm (16.8–20.5 in) in length. In Eurasia, vultures found around the Himalayas tend to be slightly larger than those from other mountain ranges. meridionalis of Africa averaging 5.7 kg (13 lb). Description Ī bearded vulture in the Puga valley in Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas Vultur barbatus was the scientific name used by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758). The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone. Females lay one or two eggs in mid-winter that hatch at the beginning of spring. It lives and breeds on crags in high mountains in southern Europe, East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Tibet, and the Caucasus. The bearded vulture population is thought to be in decline in 2004, it was classified on the IUCN Red List as least concern but has been listed as near threatened since 2014. It is vernacularly known as Homa, a divine bird in Iranian mythology.

Although dissimilar, the Egyptian and bearded vulture each have a lozenge-shaped tail-unusual among birds of prey. It is not much more closely related to the Old World vultures proper than to, for example, hawks, and differs from the former by its feathered neck. Traditionally considered an Old World vulture, it actually forms a separate minor lineage of Accipitridae together with the Egyptian vulture ( Neophron percnopterus), its closest living relative. The bearded vulture ( Gypaetus barbatus), also known as the lammergeier and ossifrage, is a very large bird of prey and the only member of the genus Gypaetus.

Lammergeyer isles of umbra