Species profile
About the vulturine guineafowl
The vulturine guineafowl is unmistakable: a bare pale-blue head with a collar of chestnut down, a cape of long lance-shaped hackles striped in cobalt, white and black, and a deep cobalt breast. It is the largest guineafowl in the world.
In Tanzania it reaches the southern limit of its range in the arid north-east, and Mkomazi National Park is the place to look. Recent research has shown that its flocks have a multi-level social structure — stable groups that recognise and associate with particular other groups, a form of society previously known mainly in large mammals.
Life in the wild
Behavior & relationships
Behavior
Terrestrial and highly gregarious, walking and running in large flocks and roosting in trees at night. Rarely flies unless forced.
Social life
Multi-level society: stable flocks of roughly a dozen to sixty that consistently associate with specific other flocks — a structure otherwise rare outside mammals.
What makes it remarkable
Special features
Long cobalt-and-white cape hackles, and a multi-level social system documented in East Africa in 2019.