Condors are part of the vulture family. They have black feathers on most of their body but white feathers on the tops of their wings and a frilly white collar of fluff around their neck. Their heads are bald and change colour from grey in young birds to deep red in adults - a bit like a built-in mood indicator, since the colour can change when the bird is excited.
Because their wings are so wide, condors use a soaring style of flying. They flap only rarely, instead tilting their wings slightly to catch thermals - columns of warm air that rise from sun-heated rock. A condor can travel 200 kilometres in a single day without barely flapping once. Scientists have tracked them rising to 5,000 metres above sea level.
The condor is the national symbol of Chile and appears on the Chilean coat of arms. It also appears on the coats of arms of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru - making it perhaps the most symbolically important bird in South America. Indigenous Andean cultures have honoured the condor for thousands of years as a messenger between the earth and the sky.
Condors live for a very long time - up to 70 years in the wild, which is exceptionally old for a bird. They have only one chick at a time, and parents look after that chick for nearly two years before it can fly properly. That slow, careful approach to raising young means that every condor chick really matters.