There are clouds in ancient poems: "Duke Chu painted eagles and eagles wearing horns, murderous to secluded." This verse speaks of the ferocity of the eagle, but the story of the Andean vulture is a magnificent legend. This massive bird, since its birth, has been writing its own life epic on the peaks of South America.
In modern times, it is hard to imagine a huge bird that can be more than two meters tall, has strong eyesight and sharp claws, and specializes in hunting large predators and even lions. However, the Andean vulture is one such existence, it is one of the largest birds in the southern hemisphere, and it can be called the flying giant on Earth.
The evolution of the Andean vulture dates back about 6 million years, and its bird ancestors soared over the peaks of South America long before humans landed on Earth. The body genes of these ancestors were already quite large, and after a long evolutionary process, they formed the behemoth we see today.
However, Andean vultures evolve relatively slowly, producing only 1 or 2 young eagles per year and incubating for up to 16 months. But once young eagles survive, they can live for a century, 17 years longer than the average human lifespan.
How this giant bird flies through the sky remains a scientific mystery. Some scholars have proposed the influence of South American geographical conditions on the flight ability of Andean vultures, and the mountain terrain and air flow may provide them with additional flight advantages, but this is still a hypothesis.
The magnificent legend of the Andean vulture tells us that life on Earth is diverse and there are always many unsolved mysteries waiting to be solved. This flying giant of South America, with its giganty and might, has become a major wonder of nature, and it also gives us a deeper understanding of the diversity of life.