Antarctica’s Refuse Collector Survives On Poop, Vomit, And Placentas
With their thick, snow-white plumage, sheathbills look like big , fat pigeons, but they behave very differently – the white birds are Antarctica’s vultures.
They are excellent flyers, but they cannot swim nor dive for food, because they lack web. Instead, they play the role of refuse collectors on the freezing continent. They clean up, when a seal has given birth, consuming blood, placentas, and other "litter". If they happen to find fresh seal excrements, they will also eat those. In the penguin colonies, sheathbills eat broken eggs and dead babies with equal enthusiasm – or the penguins’ vomited stomach contents – and near scientific bases, they feed on garbage and other human waste.
In a region such as Antarctica, animals of this type are extremely important. The cold preserves dead bodies and other waste and so, the breaking-down takes a long time. Sheathbills ensure that the process happens much faster.