Can you imagine what the roadside would smell like if the vultures weren’t around to play their role as cleanup crew? What the beach would smell like if the dead fish just lay there and rotted? As disgusting as the vultures’ habits may seem to us, they have a key role in nature’s scheme of things, cleaning up the rotting flesh and recycling it back into the ecosystem. The acid in their digestive system is so powerful that no bacteria can survive the trip through the vulture’s stomach and intestines. This allows them to eat things that would kill a human and make many carnivores sick. It has
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