Found across mountain ranges from southern Europe and Africa to Central Asia, the Bearded Vulture has one of the most extraordinary diets in the animal kingdom — as much as 90% of its diet consists entirely of bone! It carries bones high into the air and drops them onto rocks to crack them open, then swallows the fragments whole, relying on its highly acidic stomach to digest them.

 

Its striking orange-red plumage is not natural — it is actually white underneath, and the bird deliberately bathes in iron-rich mud and water to stain its feathers, thought to be a signal of dominance and health among the species!