Cinereous vulture
| Cinereous vulture Temporal range: Miocene-recent | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Accipitriformes |
| Family: | Accipitridae |
| Genus: | Aegypius |
| Species: | A. monachus |
| Binomial name | |
| Aegypius monachus (Linnaeus, 1766) | |
| Range of A. monachus Breeding Resident Passage Non-breeding Extinct Extant & Reintroduced (resident) | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Vultur monachus Linnaeus, 1766 | |
The cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) is a large raptor in the family Accipitridae and distributed through much of temperate Eurasia. It is also known as the black vulture, monk vulture and Eurasian black vulture. With a body length of 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in), 3.1 m (10 ft) across the wings and a maximum weight of 14 kg (31 lb), it is the largest Old World vulture and largest member of the Accipitridae family.
Aegypius monachus is one of the largest birds of prey and it plays a huge role in its various ecosystems by eating carcasses, and which in turn reduces the spread of diseases. The vultures are constantly exposed to many pathogens because of their eating habits. A study on the gastric and immune defense systems done in 2015, sequenced the entire genome of the cinereous genome. Comparing the vulture and the bald eagle, will allow the study to find positively selected genetic variations associated with respiration and the ability of the vulture's immune defense responses and gastric acid secretion to digest carcasses.