The female condor is smaller than the male, an exception to the usual sexual dimorphism seen in birds of prey.

It reaches sexual maturity at five or six years of age and nests at elevations of up to 5,000 m (16,000 ft), generally on inaccessible rock ledges.

The Andean condor was described by Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae and retains its original binomial name of Vultur gryphus.

[11] The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from Ciconiiformes and instead described them as incertae sedis, but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible.

Condors possess the heaviest average weight for any living flying bird or animal, ahead of trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator) and Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus).

[16][17] However, other sources claim a mean species body mass of 10.3 kg (23 lb) for the Andean condor.

[24] Their baldness means the skin is more exposed to the sterilizing effects of dehydration and high-altitude UV light.

[33] Observation of wing color patterns, and the size and shape of the male's crest, are the best ways of identifying individual Andean condors.

In the north, its range begins in Venezuela and Colombia, where it is extremely rare,[35] then continues south along the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, through Bolivia and western Argentina to the Tierra del Fuego.

[27] In the early 19th century, the Andean condor bred from western Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego, along the entire chain of the Andes, but its range has been greatly reduced due to human activity.

In this region, Andean condor distributions are therefore influenced by the locations of meadows as well as cliffs for nesting and roosting.

[39] In The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin mentioned watching condors for half an hour without once observing a flap of their wings.

[43] Like other New World vultures, the Andean condor has the unusual habit of urohidrosis: it often empties its cloaca onto its legs and feet.

A cooling effect through evaporation has been proposed as a reason for this behavior, but it does not make any sense in the cold Andean habitat of the bird.

[46] During courtship displays, the skin of the male's neck flushes, changing from dull red to bright yellow, and inflates.

[30] Other courtship rituals include hissing and clucking while hopping with wings partially spread, and dancing.

However, in coastal areas of Peru, where there are few cliffs, some nests are simply partially shaded crannies scraped out against boulders on slopes.

[39] Wild condors inhabit large territories, often traveling more than 200 km (120 mi) a day in search of carrion.

For condors who live around the coast, the diet consists mainly of beached carcasses of marine mammals, largely cetaceans.

The Cathartes vultures forage by smell, detecting the scent of ethyl mercaptan, a gas produced by the beginnings of decay in dead animals.

[58] However, studies have indicated that Andean condors are fairly proficient at searching out carrion without needing to rely on other scavengers to guide them to it.

[60][61] Andean condors are intermittent eaters in the wild, often going for a few days without eating, then gorging themselves on several pounds at once, sometimes to the point of being unable to lift off the ground.

[62] Andean condors can efficiently absorb a wide variety of carotenoid pigments from the vegetal matter within the viscera that they consume from carcasses.

In 1983, the Guinness Book of World Records considered the longest-lived bird of any species with a confirmed lifespan was an Andean condor that died after surviving 72 years in captivity, having been captured from the wild as a juvenile of undetermined age.

It was first placed on the United States Endangered Species list in 1970,[64] a status which is assigned to an animal that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.

[65] Threats to its population include loss of habitat needed for foraging, secondary poisoning from animals killed by hunters and persecution.

[21] It is threatened mainly in the northern area of its range, and is extremely rare in Venezuela and Colombia, where it has undergone considerable declines in recent years.

[67] Reintroduction programs using captive-bred Andean condors, which release birds hatched in North American zoos into the wild to bolster populations,[67] have been introduced in Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia.

[71] The Andean condor is a national symbol of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuelan Andes states.

[78] The Andean condor is a popular figure on stamps in many countries, appearing on one for Ecuador in 1958, Argentina in 1960, Peru in 1973, Bolivia in 1985, Colombia in 1992, Chile in 1935 and 2001, and Venezuela in 2004.