In nature, animals can be roughly divided into three types – carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, and among carnivores and omnivores, there are scavengers. Strictly speaking, except for humans, other carnivores and omnivores can be called “scavengers.” It’s just that some animals stand at the top of the food chain, with plenty of food, and disdain to eat carrion, but when food is scarce, they will also eat carrion. However, there are not many animals that feed on carrion. As the questioner said, vultures are animals that feed on carrion. So, why don’t these animals get food poisoning after eating carrion? Let’s discuss this issue together.

First, let’s take a look at why humans can’t eat carrion?

Humans are the top animals in the current food chain, but as omnivorous animals, people today cannot eat carrion or even raw meat. Why is this? In fact, the reason is very simple.

The eating habits of animals are the result of a long period of evolution. For example, the ancestor of the giant panda, the proto-panda, was originally a carnivore, but the giant panda became an omnivore that feeds on bamboo. The same is true for humans.

From early apes to humans, humans have not only changed their appearance, but also their eating habits. When there was no fire, early humans ate raw food. However, after fire entered human life, humans used fire to make cooked food. From that moment on, the human lifestyle changed. From the beginning of eating cooked food, the entire human digestive system also began to change slowly. Today, our human digestive system can only digest and absorb cooked meat. In comparison, the digestive system of today’s people is degraded compared to that of the past, but all changes are to better adapt to the current environment. From this perspective, it is a kind of evolution.

Since raw meat cannot be eaten, there is no need to mention rotten meat which contains corrosive (cadaverine) and toxic ( putrescine ) substances.

So why don’t scavengers like vultures get poisoned after eating dead meat?

There are two reasons why vultures are not poisoned by the carrion.

01 Habits

As we said above, the living habits of animals are evolved. Just like the evolution of humans from eating raw meat to eating cooked meat, the same is true for vultures. Since vultures do not have sharp claws like eagles for hunting, vultures have become “opportunists”, that is, they eat meat when they encounter it. However, fresh meat is mostly killed by wild beasts, so the vultures, which have no offensive power at this time, will not approach it until the prey begins to rot and other animals are not close, and then they will go back to eat. This habit of scavenging slowly changes the digestive system inside the body. Therefore, as a scavenger, vultures eat rotten meat as their main meal.

02 Digestive system

Scientific research has found that the entire digestive system of vultures is full of Fusobacterium . This is a powerful bacterium that kills harmful bacteria. After the animal carcasses rot, they will produce cadaverine and putrescine. Cadaverine is corrosive and highly irritating, while putrescine is a toxic gas. These bacteria, which seem deadly to humans, are a “piece of cake” in front of the vulture’s digestive tract. Fusobacterium can kill the harmful bacteria in cadaverine and putrescine, and the vulture’s gastric juice is highly corrosive and can also kill many viruses such as rabies and anthrax . Therefore, even if the vulture eats a rotten hippo carcass infected with anthrax , it will not be infected.