Warbla

Warbla · Library

Turkey Vulture

Cathartes aura · Family Cathartidae

Cathartes aura

Family Cathartidae

Order
Accipitriformes
Family
Cathartidae
GBIF occurrence records
17,643,514
Countries and territories with records
51
Turkey Vulture
Andrey from Finland · Cathartes aura -Mexico-8.jpg · CC BY 2.0 · Andrey from Finland · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Recordings may be trimmed and re-encoded; photos are cropped and resized.
Play song · G. McGrane · Turkey_Vulture.ogg · Public domain · G. McGrane · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons · Recordings may be trimmed and re-encoded; photos are cropped and resized.

About this species

This species has 17,643,514 occurrence records from 51 countries and territories (GBIF, 21 October 2026). Most records come from the United States (81.3%), Canada (7.6%), Mexico (2.1%) and Costa Rica (2%); together they account for 93% of the total. In the United States, this species accounts for 1.3% of all bird records in GBIF.

The scientific name Cathartes aura combines the genus name Cathartes with the species epithet aura. The Warbla app catalog lists 3 species of the genus Cathartes; apart from this one, those with the most GBIF records are Cathartes burrovianus and Cathartes melambrotus.

The catalog has GBIF record counts for 6 species of the family Cathartidae. This species has the most records among them. Its record count is 4.3 times the family average (4,092,144). The family Cathartidae belongs to the order Accipitriformes, which has 213 species in the Warbla app catalog.

More birds in the family Cathartidae

Credits & data sources