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The bearded vulture has a stomach pH around 0.7, roughly car battery acid. It swallows small bones whole and carries the large ones to altitude, dropping them on specific rock slabs until they shatter. It also dyes its own head and chest rust-orange by bathing in iron-rich mud, purely for status. Europe exterminated them from the Alps by 1913. They have been quietly reintroduced since 1986.
By Christopher KliebensteinThe bearded vulture has a stomach pH around 0.7, roughly car battery acid. It swallows small bones whole and carries the large ones to altitude, dropping them on specific rock slabs until they shatter. It also dyes its own head and chest rust-orange by bathing in iron-rich mud, purely for status. Europe exterminated them from the Alps by 1913. They have been quietly reintroduced since 1986.