you’ve probably heard that most vultures have bald heads so they don’t get all yuck while going about their daily business.
(their daily business is sticking their entire head into rotting carcasses)
and this is true, but maybe you didn’t know that turkey vultures in particular have a moveable neck ruff!
so when it gets cold, they can just-
zip it up.
comfy cozy!
And it isn’t JUST turkey vultures. This is a shared skill among every new world vulture.
Ah, what a nice warm day.
Whoops! A cool breeze! Time to zip up my hoodie!
Just a vulture being a vulture.
Uh oh! Turtleneck time!
When you’re meeting the boys for dinner at 6 but have a fashion walk at 7.
Rarest turtleneck in the continent.
And yes, they absolutely do deploy the turtleneck in colder weather just like humans might. Some species are more often seen with it deployed and the opposite is true for others.
Oh this makes much more sense. I’m not sure why, but somewhere along the line I became convinced that it had to do with reaching maturity, like how bald eagles don’t get their white head and tail until they’re about five years old.
But this. That’s what I look like on a cold, wet winter day, too.
If they feel a single rained drop they pull their turtleneck up. They hate rain on their bare little head and necks. They crave umbrellas.
You aren’t wrong to associate it with age though. Juvenile vultures tend to have the turtleneck deployed almost always. Andean condors also get a larger caruncle and more prominent flaps of skin when the turtleneck is not activated as they age, so it is more emphasized when adults are going bare necked
