Poems and Thoughts    by Frank Maurer

[Return to Poems and Thoughts index page]

The Egyptian Vulture. My first university teaching job was in Turkiye (then Turkey). At Robert College (now Bogazici Universitesi) in Bebek, On the Bosphorus, north of Istanbul. The Science Building was quite new and my classes were on the first floor. I had a laboratory of my own in the 'attic'. There was a large enclosed, depressed area Along the whole building on the south side. During my entire life, even now at 82 in Davis, California, I have always lived with and studied tortoises. In Turkiye I worked with two species of Testudo-- T, graeca and T. hermani, observing them in the large depression. Specifically, my studies included electrophoresis of blood types, As well as diurnal behavioural movements of the two species. To be terse, T. hermani's activities began earlier and lasted longer Than those of its sympatric fellow species, T. graeca. Thus, their daily movements divided their feeding times, reducing competition! The appearance of the two is fairly similar. I collected specimens both on the European And on the eastern Anatolian territories. As I moved through the wilder area of Anatolia, I noticed that a number of the tortoise carapaces (upper shell), Had large, healed cracks across much of the curved surfaces. Upon queries and studying, I learned the cause was the Egyptian Vulture. Tortoise flesh was one of their sources of protein. I never actually saw this occurring, but the evidence was plentiful; The vulture simply found a tortoise, flew up in the air, Grasping the reptile's body with its talons and dropping it from a height Which, perhaps after several attempts, cracked the shell enough That the bird could pry it open and consume the protected body! (In Africa, this vulture would 'fling' rocks with its beak At ostrich eggs to break them open.) I began to wonder what phenomenon Caused the weaker, curved carapace to be cracked And not the flat plastron, covering the tortoise underside. North of Bebek, Ahmet the Conqueror had constructed the Rumeli Hisar From which, paired with a fortress on the eastern side of the Bosphorus, He could control, using cannons, the movements on the waterway. (From here he later moved his boats on rollers over the hill, Ending inside the protected, chained Golden Horn of old Constantinople, Surprised the Greeks, and conquered the city!) At any rate, I used that Hisar (fortress) with my students, To drop preserved, dead tortoise bodies from the high parapets, Observing how they would fall and land, Imitating the hunting behaviour of the Egyptian Vulture. As suspected, the aerodynamics of the curved carapace Caused the tortoise body to rotate in the air and collide with the ground, Making vulnerable, the weaker upper tortoise carapace. From this experience and from so many more, Turkiye taught me abundantly the enigmas of life. Frank Maurer 8 February 2024 0529 Hours (yawn)