Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus): Facts, Wingspan and Habitat

Appearance

The adult Andean condor is mostly glossy black. A collar of white, fluffy feathers circles the base of the neck, and large white panels on the upper side of the wings flash when the bird banks in flight. The head and neck are almost bare, with dull red to blackish skin that can flush yellow or red within seconds when the bird is excited or competing at a carcass.

Males and females are easy to tell apart. The male has a large, dark red comb (caruncle) on the crown and a fold of skin, the wattle, hanging from the neck; his eyes are brown. The female lacks the comb and has deep red eyes. Unusually for a bird of prey, the male is larger than the female.

Young condors are gray-brown with a dark head and a brownish ruff. They take several years to gain full adult plumage.

Size: how big is an Andean condor?

The Andean condor is the heaviest bird of prey and one of the heaviest flying birds. Its broad wings have the largest surface area of any living bird, a key to its soaring flight. For more detail, see how big an Andean condor is.

Many published weights come from birds raised in captivity, so wild averages may differ slightly.

Habitat and range

Andean condors live along the Andes from western Venezuela and Colombia south through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and western Argentina to Tierra del Fuego. They also forage along the desert coasts of Peru and Chile and over the steppes of Patagonia. In Venezuela and Colombia they are now very rare, and part of the population there comes from reintroduced birds.

They prefer open country where they can search the ground from the air: high grasslands such as the páramo and puna, rocky slopes, cliffs, canyons and coasts. They roost and nest on cliffs, mostly at about 3,000–5,000 m (9,800–16,400 ft), but in Patagonia and on the coast they come down almost to sea level.

Flight: soaring without flapping

Condors are built to soar, not to flap. Their breastbone is too small to anchor the large flight muscles that powerful flappers need. Instead, they ride rising air: thermals, which are columns of warm air over sunlit ground, and updrafts where wind strikes cliffs and ridges.

Charles Darwin watched condors for half an hour without seeing a single wingbeat. Modern flight recorders confirm his observation. A 2020 study in Patagonia found that condors flapped for only about 1% of their flight time, mostly during takeoff, and one bird flew for more than five hours and about 170 km (106 mi) without flapping. Read more in do condors flap their wings?

Wild condors often travel more than 200 km (120 mi) in a day searching for food.

Diet: a scavenger of the mountains

The Andean condor is a scavenger. It eats carrion, preferring the carcasses of large animals. Natural food includes guanacos, vicuñas, deer and rheas. Today much of its food comes from cattle, sheep, horses, goats and introduced animals such as red deer, wild boar and hares. Along the coast, condors feed on dead sea lions, seals and stranded whales, and sometimes raid seabird colonies for eggs.

Condors find food mainly by sight, often by watching other scavengers. Smaller turkey vultures, which can smell carrion, sometimes lead them to a carcass, while the condor’s strong bill tears open thick hides that the smaller birds cannot. In Patagonia, condors regularly feed on the kills of pumas.

A condor can go several days without food and then gorge on a large meal, sometimes so much that it struggles to take off. By clearing away carcasses, condors play an important role in keeping ecosystems healthy.

Social life and pecking order

Andean condors are social birds. They roost together on cliffs, and many birds may gather at a large carcass. Groups have a clear pecking order: adult males usually dominate, followed by adult females and then young birds. Dominance is settled by posture, flushing of the bare skin, hissing and short chases rather than real fights.

Like other New World vultures, condors have no true voice box. They make only hisses, grunts and clucking sounds.

Reproduction and life cycle

Andean condors breed slowly. They reach maturity at about five to eight years old and are thought to pair for life. In courtship, the male inflates and flushes his neck, spreads his wings, hisses and clicks his tongue in front of the female.

Nests are simple: a few sticks or a bare scrape on a remote cliff ledge or in a cave. The female lays a single bluish-white egg, and both parents incubate it for about 54–58 days. The chick is covered in gray down and is fed by both parents. It flies at about six months old but stays with its parents until about two years old. Because of this long care, a pair usually breeds only every other year.

How long do Andean condors live?

With no natural predators as adults, Andean condors can live a very long time. Wild birds are thought to live over 50 years. A male named Thaao, hatched in 1930 and kept at a zoo in Connecticut, died in 2010 at 79, one of the greatest ages confirmed for any bird.

Threats and conservation status

The IUCN lists the Andean condor as Vulnerable. It was moved from Near Threatened in 2020, and its population is decreasing. The total population is estimated in the low thousands to about 10,000 birds, with the greatest declines in the north.

The main threats are:

• Poisoning: condors eat poisoned bait set for pumas, foxes and feral dogs, and lead fragments from bullets in carcasses and gut piles.
• Persecution: some farmers shoot condors in the mistaken belief that they kill livestock.
• Slow breeding: with one chick every two years, the loss of even a few adults has a big effect.

Captive-breeding and release programs have returned condors to parts of Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina since 1989. Chicks are raised with condor-shaped hand puppets so that they do not become used to people. The species is also protected in every country of its range.

Myths and facts

Myth: condors carry off lambs or even children. Condors have weak, straight, blunt claws suited to walking, not to gripping prey. They cannot lift large animals and feed almost only on animals that are already dead.

Myth: condors spread disease. The opposite is true. By eating carcasses quickly, condors and other vultures remove food for flies and bacteria.

Fact: the condor and the California condor are not the same species. The California condor is a separate, critically endangered species in its own genus, Gymnogyps.

Andean condor vs California condor

The two condors are the largest New World vultures and look alike at a distance, but they differ in several ways:

In 1988 and 1989, the US Fish and Wildlife Service released a few female Andean condors in California as a test before releasing captive-bred California condors. All of them were later recaptured and returned to South America.

Where to see Andean condors

The most famous viewpoint is the Cruz del Cóndor in Colca Canyon, Peru, where condors rise on morning updrafts just above the canyon rim, often within a short distance of visitors. In Chile, condors are seen in the mountains above Santiago and in Torres del Paine National Park. In Argentina, the Quebrada del Condorito National Park near Córdoba and the cliffs of Patagonia are good places. Condors are most active from mid-morning, once the sun has warmed the rocks and the air begins to rise.

Relationship with people

The Andean condor has been depicted in Andean art for more than 4,000 years and is linked with the sun and the upper world in Andean belief. It is the national bird of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador and appears on the coats of arms of those four countries. It is also a national symbol of Argentina and Peru. The condor features among the national animals of the Americas and in the famous Peruvian melody “El Cóndor Pasa”.