Vultures have bald heads to…

…regulate temperature and (maybe) to keep feathers clean while eating. Keeping the feathers clean was my inspiration for this sketchplanation - there’s something about the cold practicality of not messing up your feathers while you’re tucking into some carrion. However, it looks like it is more likely to be for the more prosaic reason of regulating temperature and keeping cool. As Dominic McCafferty, at the University of Glasgow points out:

‘…other groups of scavengers, particularly giant petrels, have feathered heads. Large mammalian scavengers also don’t have bald heads, so why vultures?’

Should you be interested, read more at the University of Glasgow’s Why do vultures have bald heads?

Published 19 Mar 2015

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An urban area next to a more natural rural area showing how the urban area gets hotter than the surrounding land

Heat islands

The law of unintended consequences

The Goldilocks Zone

The Plimsoll line

Seasons

The two primary temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit side-by-side calling out water freezing, body temperature and water boiling

Fahrenheit and Celsius

Heat islands are urban areas that can have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas with more greenery. Heat islands are caused by several factors, including: the types of materials we use in cities for buildings, pavement, and roads that can absorb more heat than natural surfaces such as leaves or grass human additions to the sun's heat, such as air conditioning, vehicles, cooking, or machinery the shapes of our cities that may restrict airflow to carry heat away the mass of our buildings that can absorb heat and release it gradually, even through the night More natural, often rural areas with greenery may reflect more light, release moisture and provide shade. There are ways to help reduce the effect of heat islands, such as planting more urban trees or using green roofs. Deciduous trees have the handy feature of providing shade for a house in the summer while letting light through in the winter when the leaves fall. A study using 2015 data found that "doubling tree cover in European cities could cut the number of heat-related deaths during summer months by nearly 40 per cent." In Columbia's Medellín, creating 30 Green Corridors helped to reduce temperatures by 2°C in the first three years of the program. Learn more about the heat island effect on the EPA site.…Heat islands are urban areas that can have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas with more greenery. Heat islands are caused by several factors, including: the types of materials we use in cities for buildings, pavement, and roads that can absorb more heat than natural surfaces such as leaves or grass human additions to the sun's heat, such as air conditioning, vehicles, cooking, or machinery the shapes of our cities that may restrict airflow to carry heat away the mass of our buildings that can absorb heat and release it gradually, even through the night More natural, often rural areas with greenery may reflect more light, release moisture and provide shade. There are ways to help reduce the effect of heat islands, such as planting more urban trees or using green roofs. Deciduous trees have the handy feature of providing shade for a house in the summer while letting light through in the winter when the leaves fall. A study using 2015 data found that "doubling tree cover in European cities could cut the number of heat-related deaths during summer months by nearly 40 per cent." In Columbia's Medellín, creating 30 Green Corridors helped to reduce temperatures by 2°C in the first three years of the program. Learn more about the heat island effect on the EPA site.

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