A dead giveaway: Foraging vultures and other avian scavengers respond to auditory cues.

ABSTRACT: Carrion represents an unpredictable and widely distributed primary food source for vultures and other avian scavengers. Avian scavengers in African savanna ecosystems are reported to rely exclusively on visual stimuli to locate carcasses. However, carnivores' predation of large mammalian herbivores and subsequent competition for access to the carcass can result in considerable noise, often audible over long distances and for prolonged periods. Vultures and other avian scavengers may therefore detect and respond to these auditory cues, as do the mammalian carnivores alongside which vultures have coevolved, but this has not been investigated to date. Working in the Serengeti ecosystem, Tanzania, we used diurnal auditory broadcasts to simulate predation and competitive carnivore feeding inter

SUBMITTER: Jackson CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7381568 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature