The Bearded Vulture is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone.
The bone-eating giant bird which coats itself minerals like copper to get its rusty hue for unknown cosmetic reasons, most likely to show dominance. The brighter the hue, the more dominant the male.
They probably need the copper because its anti-bacterial properties. useful if you’re a carrion eater.
The bird has a 9 ft wingspan.
Bearded Vultures provide an indispensable service to the ecosystem, checking the spread of disease by consuming corpses. But the bearded’s diet is 95 percent bone. It can wait for the other scavengers to strip the body clean, then stroll in at its leisure to take its fill.
John Augustus Knapp (1853-1938) - illustration from John Uri Lloyd's 'Etidorhpa, or, the end of the earth: the strange history of a mysterious being and the account of a remarkable journey', 1895
Description: A Wamp is a creature the size of a raccoon with a grey, bag-shaped body and a hollow tail with a salt shaker at the end of it. It goes around shaking salt onto trees, where deer will lick up the salt. So if you see a deer licking the ground, there might be a Wamp nearby.
‘The dogs seem to like you,’ he said.
‘I get on well with animals, sir.’
Teatime’s face was young and open and friendly. Or, at least, it smiled all the time. But the effect was spoiled for most people by the fact that it had only one eye. Some unexplained accident had taken the other one, and the missing orb had been replaced by a ball of glass. The result was disconcerting. But what bothered Lord Downey far more was the man’s other eye, the one that might loosely be called normal. He’d never seen such a small and sharp pupil. Teatime looked at the world through a pinhole.
He found he’d retreated behind his desk again. There was that about
Teatime. You always felt happier if you had something between you and him.
‘You like animals, do you?’ he said. ‘I have a report here that says you
nailed Sir George’s dog to the ceiling.’
Description: The Battle of Chickamauga is considered to be the second worst battle in the American Civil War. So much blood was spilled, that it attracted a creature. Reports of a long-haired, pale, green-eyed creature lying on top of dead bodies were reported by soldiers on the battlefield.