Bearded vultures tend to stick to mountainous regions, where they have plenty of rocks to drop bones on. Plus, mountains are definitely the most metal of habitats. Sonja Krueger

Legend holds that the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, fearing a prophecy that a falling object would kill him, spent an inordinate amount of time out in open spaces. So naturally an eagle picked up a tortoise and killed the playwright by dropping it on his noggin, having mistaken the man’s bald head for a rock that could break open the prey.

The story is almost certainly not true (that would have been one hell of a shot), but eagles will indeed drop tortoises on rocks like that. There’s even another kind of bird that does the same, only it doesn’t bother with live prey. The beautiful bearded vulture feeds almost exclusively on skeletal fragments, swallowing bones whole when possible. What pieces it can’t swallow it takes into the air and drops onto rocks, shattering them into manageable pieces. Read more.