[garmaine]

When George Mallory was found on Everest, scavengers had eaten his internal organs from one hole in his (frozen) skin. He was like a human-shaped shell.

[detaro]

What scavengers would that be? No small animal capable of doing that is known to be able to survive at that height. small number of birds can fly that high, that's about it.

[garmaine]

The lammergeyer, a sort of high-altitude vulture. They're known to eat the dead on Everest.

[matkoniecz]

> They even have been observed living at altitudes of 7,500 m (24,600 ft) on Mount Everest

> The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists almost exclusively (70 to 90 percent) of bone.

> The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), also known as the lammergeier and ossifrage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture

[kens]

"ossifrage" is interesting to see in a sentence because the word appeared in a famous 1977 RSA cryptographic challenge with the solution "The magic words are squeamish ossifrage". The challenge appeared in Martin Gardner's Scientific American column and took 17 years to break.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Words_are_Squeamis...

[retrac]

> ossifrage

the bone-breaker

Appropriate.