The Andean condor is the largest bird of prey ever recorded. The adult height of this enormous bird is four feet, and it has a wing span of 10 feet. It usually weighs between 20 to 25 pounds. Males are somewhat larger than females but are alike in appearance, except that males have a caruncle (fleshy growth) on their heads. The condor has a bare gray-red head and a white ring on its neck. Its feathers are shiny black with large white patches. It has a hooked bill that is ivory in color. Because it has a bald neck and head, the condor doesn’t have a risk of getting diseases from the carcass it’s eating.
The condor's habitat is the entire range of the Andes Mountains, though it is usually found on the west coast of South America in Columbia, Chile, and Peru. It builds a crude nest on a rocky ledge.
This scavenger eats carrion and sea bird eggs, and rabbits in the wild, but eats raw meat, bones, and mice in zoos. In the Brandywine Zoo, the Andean condor eats rats.
It is more common to see condors flying than resting. Condors soar without effort, rarely flapping their wings. They can be found in pairs and groups when prey is located. Until breeding season, these birds live in flocks.
Both the male and female incubate a single egg laid every other year. The incubation of the egg is 54-58 days.The eggs are whitish yellow with brown spots. Condors reach maturity at 7-8 years.
The Andean condor’s cousin, the California condor, is extinct in the wild already.
One Andean condor lived to be 72 years old, the longest age of a bird ever.
The Andean condor is an endangered species because of trigger-happy farmers and pesticide poisoning. They are part of a program which people are studying how to repopulate the species.
The Brandywine Zoo has a male and a female. A new exhibit was made for these birds in 1998.
For more information visit:
http://www2.sandi.net/roosevelt/condorhome.html
http://natzoo.si.edu/zooview/exhibits/birdhs/condor.htm
http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/priors/george.htm
http://www.clemetzoo.com/rttw/condor/allabt.htm
http://www.kondor.de/condor/tanz_e.html