In the remote valleys of New South Wales, scientists have uncovered something quietly profound: the great scavengers of the Australian landscape — dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles — do not feed by chance, but by choice. Across forty kangaroo carcasses and two seasons, researchers from the University of Sydney and University of Glasgow documented how these apex animals select specific body parts with a precision long assumed to belong only to herbivores. The discovery invites us to reconsider the intelligence embedded in the act of consumption itself, and how the feeding choices of the powerful
Apex scavengers show seasonal feeding preferences, study reveals
Selective feeding was not the province of herbivores alone.
Mark
So they put out forty dead kangaroos and just watched what ate them? That seems straightforward enough. What was actually surprising here?
Mimi
The surprise was that the apex scavengers weren't just eating whatever was easiest to access. Eagles went for heads, dingoes went for tails. They were selective. And that selectivity changed with the seasons.
Luke
But how do we know that's about nutrition and not just, say, what happens to be exposed first as the carcass decomposes? Or what's easiest to tear off?
Mimi
Fair question. The fact that the preferences shifted seasonally—more abdomen in cool months—suggests it's not just about mechanics. If it were just about what's exposed, you'd expect the same pattern year-round.
Mark
And the red foxes didn't shift their behavior at all?
Mimi
Right. They showed little change across seasons or as decomposition progressed. The apex scavengers were adapting; the smaller scavengers weren't.
Luke
Though we should note—this is one study, in one valley, with kangaroos. We don't know if dingoes and eagles behave this way everywhere, or with different prey.
Mimi
True. But it's the first time anyone's documented this kind of selectivity in carnivorous scavengers at all. That's the baseline finding.
Mark
What does it mean for the foxes, practically speaking?
Mimi
They're competing with much larger animals for the same food source. If the apex scavengers are taking the most nutritious parts, the foxes get what's left. Over time, that could affect how many foxes survive and reproduce in an area.
Luke
Though again—we'd need longer-term data to know if that actually translates to population-level effects. One month of camera footage is a snapshot.
Mark
Fair. But it opens the door to that question, doesn't it?
Mimi
Exactly. It's a foundation for understanding how these hierarchies actually work in nature.
Il Polso
- A long-standing assumption in ecology — that selective feeding is an herbivore's strategy — has been overturned by footage from camera traps in the Blue Mountains.
- Wedge-tailed eagles claimed the heads of carcasses, dingoes staked out the tails, and red foxes were left to compete for whatever remained — a hierarchy written in flesh.
- As cooler months arrived, both apex species pivoted toward abdominal tissue, suggesting their bodies were tracking seasonal nutritional demands with remarkable precision.
- Red foxes, lacking the same flexibility, were doubly disadvantaged — outcompeted for preferred parts and unable to adapt their choices as conditions changed.
- The research, now published in Royal Society Open Science, signals that understanding who eats what — and when — could fundamentally alter how ecologists manage landscapes and disease risk.
In the remote valleys of New South Wales, scientists have uncovered something quietly profound: the great scavengers of the Australian landscape — dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles — do not feed by chance, but by choice. Across forty kangaroo carcasses and two seasons, researchers from the University of Sydney and University of Glasgow documented how these apex animals select specific body parts with a precision long assumed to belong only to herbivores. The discovery invites us to reconsider the intelligence embedded in the act of consumption itself, and how the feeding choices of the powerful quietly govern the survival of the small.
In the Wolgan Valley on the western edge of the Greater Blue Mountains National Park, researchers placed forty eastern grey kangaroo carcasses across the landscape and let the cameras run for thirty days. The carcasses came from local culls, and the question they were meant to answer was deceptively quiet: do apex scavengers eat with intention, the way herbivores are known to?
Niraj Meisuria, a PhD student at the University of Sydney's Disease Ecology Lab, suspected they did. Working with colleagues from Sydney and the University of Glasgow, he distributed the carcasses across two seasons — twenty in warm months, twenty in cool — to test whether temperature shaped what the animals chose to consume. Three species appeared in the footage: dingoes, wedge-tailed eagles, and red foxes.
What the cameras revealed was a portrait of deliberate preference. Eagles fed on heads more than any other species. Dingoes favored tails. Both outcompeted the red foxes for these parts, a dominance that constrained the smaller animals' access to nutrition in ways that could affect their survival and reproduction.
The most striking finding came with the seasons. As temperatures dropped, both eagles and dingoes shifted significantly toward abdominal tissue — a change that tracked their metabolic needs rather than mere availability. They also adjusted their choices as decomposition advanced, targeting different tissues as the carcass aged. The red foxes showed little of this adaptability.
The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, is the first to document how apex scavengers modulate feeding choices in response to both season and decomposition. Its implications extend well beyond diet — into how ecologists understand disease transmission, community dynamics, and the quiet but consequential power that large scavengers hold over the ecosystems they inhabit.
In the Wolgan Valley, on the western edge of the Greater Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, researchers arranged forty eastern grey kangaroo carcasses across the landscape and waited to see what would come to feed. The carcasses, sourced from local damage mitigation culls, bore the marks of heavy parasite loads. Camera traps recorded everything for thirty days—a patient documentation of who ate what, and when, and why it might matter.
The question driving the work was deceptively simple: Do apex scavengers—the large carnivores that dominate the cleanup of dead animals—eat selectively, the way herbivores do? Niraj Meisuria, a PhD student at the University of Sydney's Disease Ecology Lab, had reason to suspect they did. Recent research had shown that wild animals across many species feed with precision to meet specific nutritional needs. But carnivores, particularly scavengers, had barely been studied this way. Here was a chance to test the idea.
Meisuria and colleagues from the University of Sydney and University of Glasgow distributed the carcasses strategically across two seasons—twenty in warm months, twenty in cool ones—to see whether temperature shaped what the scavengers chose to eat. The cameras captured three species: dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles, both apex scavengers that dominate their ecological niches, and red foxes, smaller and more opportunistic feeders classified as mesoscavengers.
What emerged from the footage was a picture of deliberate choice. The apex scavengers did not simply consume whatever was available. Wedge-tailed eagles showed a marked preference for the head and abdomen of carcasses, feeding on the head more frequently than any other species in the study. Dingoes favored the tail. Both species outcompeted the red foxes for these preferred parts, a dominance that carried real consequences—the smaller scavengers' access to nutrition, and thus their survival and reproductive success, was constrained by what the larger animals left behind.
But the most striking finding emerged when the researchers tracked feeding patterns across time and season. As the cool months arrived, both the eagles and dingoes shifted their behavior, consuming significantly more abdominal tissue than they had in warmer periods. This was not random variation. It suggested that the apex scavengers were responding to changing nutritional demands, selecting different body parts as the seasons changed and their metabolic needs shifted. The eagles and dingoes continued to adjust their preferences as decomposition progressed, targeting different tissues as the carcass aged. The red foxes, by contrast, showed little such flexibility.
Meisuria described the finding as confirmation of a long-held suspicion: that selective feeding was not the province of herbivores alone, but a strategy deployed across the carnivorous scavenging guild. The research, published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, documented for the first time how apex scavengers modulate their feeding choices in response to both seasonal change and the advancing decomposition of their food source. The implications ripple outward—understanding how apex scavengers structure the availability of carrion for smaller competitors could reshape how ecologists think about community dynamics, disease transmission, and the management of ecosystems where these large scavengers operate.
Citazioni salienti
For the first time, selective feeding behaviours in scavengers and how this is impacted by season and through time have been documented.— Niraj Meisuria, PhD student, University of Sydney Disease Ecology Lab
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