King vulture

The king vulture is a scavenger that lives in forest habitat, has a terrestrial lifestyle and is sedentary. It lays 1 egg per clutch and 1 clutch per year, with an incubation period of 57 days, and is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Weight

3.4 kgsrc for Weight

Length

Not recorded

Wingspan

2.01 msrc for Wingspan

Lifespan

40 yearssrc for Lifespan

Diet

Scavengersrc for Diet

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

forestsrc for Habitat

Egg incubation

57 dayssrc for Egg incubation

Young per litter or clutch

1src for Young per litter or clutch

Litters or clutches a year

1src for Litters or clutches a year

Lifestyle

Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle

Migration

Sedentarysrc for Migration

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

The king vulture is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

1. LCLeast Concern
2. NTNear Threatened
3. VUVulnerable
4. ENEndangered
5. CRCritically Endangered
6. EWExtinct in the Wild
7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classAves
4. orderAccipitriformes
5. familyCathartidae
6. genusSarcoramphus
7. SpeciesSarcoramphus papa (Linnaeus, 1758)

Synonyms Sarcaramphus papa, Sarcorhamphus papa, Vultur papa, Vultur rex vulturum

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaiNaturalistTAXREFWikidataWoRMSIUCN Red List

CompareKing vulture vs Sarcoramphus sacer

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{king_vulture_2026,
  title = {King vulture (Sarcoramphus papa)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/king-vulture},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}