Two Counts of a Bone Diet: teacher key

Bearded Vultures, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. Two reports give different numbers for what a bearded vulture eats. The bird eats bones, waits for other scavengers to finish and builds a nest about a meter high.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What does the Animal Diversity Web say about the bearded vulture's diet?
   • 85 percent is bone (answer)
   • 93 percent is fruit
   • 61 percent is fish
2. What does a bearded vulture do after it finds a carcass?
   • It often waits for other scavengers to finish (answer)
   • It carries it to the sea
   • It buries it
3. What is an important part of a chick's diet?
   • Only large bones
   • Plants
   • Scraps of meat and skin (answer)
4. How does a bearded vulture mainly find food?
   • By smell
   • By using its eyes (answer)
   • By listening
5. A bearded vulture has a poorly developed sense of smell. What does it use instead?
   • Its eyes (answer)
   • Its beard
   • Its nest
6. In the text, what is a scavenger?
   • An animal that eats dead animal remains (answer)
   • A kind of nest
   • A mountain slope

Words

• scavengers: carrion eaters
• ibex: wild goat
• carcass: dead animal
• hoofed: having hooves
• breeding: raising young