Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Flamin­gos are found on all con­ti­nents ex­cept Antarc­tica and Aus­tralia. De­pend­ing on the au­thor­ity in­volved, there are up to six dis­tinct species, each with its own range and ge­o­graphic dis­per­sion.

Specif­i­cally, the range of greater flamin­gos ex­tends across the en­tire shore­line of Africa, the Mediter­ranean Sea, parts of Asia and India as well as south­ern United States, the Caribbean, and Yu­catan Penin­sula where there are warm coastal habi­tats.

The range of Caribbean flamin­gos, a sub­species of Phoeni­copterus ruber, cov­ers the north­ern shore of South Amer­ica, most shore­line around the Caribbean Sea, as well as nearby is­lands in the Caribbean and East­ern Pa­cific. Flamin­gos have been seen in the south­ern United States, though they are not as pro­lific as in the more south­ern lat­i­tudes. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Tour du Valat", 2010; Allen, 1956; Fer, 2006; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native
• ethiopian
  • native
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Flamin­gos live in large colonies, of­ten­times num­ber­ing into the thou­sands of in­di­vid­u­als. They tend to oc­cupy large mud flats where the loose mud can be eas­ily formed into the mounds that they use as nests. These large mud flats are usu­ally lo­cated near a food sup­ply.

Hy­per-saline es­tu­ar­ies are the pre­ferred habi­tat. They are harsh en­vi­ron­ments where fil­ter feed­ers ben­e­fit from re­duced com­pe­ti­tion and pre­da­tion while at the same time being able to take ad­van­tage of the abun­dant food sources. These habi­tats are often lo­cated near larger bod­ies of water such as coastal areas, sea in­lets, rivers, and open lakes. Habi­tats are nearly al­ways coastal, but they have been known to move in­land to la­goons or vol­canic lakes.

In colonies of such high den­sity, oc­ca­sional food short­ages arise and flocks will per­form short mi­gra­tions in search of greater food re­sources. Flamin­gos show lit­tle to no site-tenac­ity and don't often re­turn to pre­vi­ous flock­ing sites, or to their birth lo­ca­tions. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Phoeni­copterus ruber", 2008; "Tour du Valat", 2010; Fer, 2006; Gould, 1985; Rooth, 1965; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Habitat Regions
• tropical
• saltwater or marine
• freshwater

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams
• temporary pools
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• riparian
• estuarine

• Average elevation

  sea level m

  ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Greater flamin­gos are one of the larger mem­bers of the Aves class with a wingspan mea­sur­ing 1.5 m wide, stand­ing 1.2 m tall, and weigh­ing 2.1 to 4.1 kg. They are most well-known for their bright pink col­oration and in fact, the word "flamingo" de­rives from old Span­ish for "flam­ing" or "red feather." In­di­vid­u­als have long, grace­ful necks and legs which in pro­por­tion to body size are the longest of any bird. Flamin­gos will often rest their head on their body in order to avoid fa­tigue in the neck mus­cles.

The bill is uniquely adapted for fil­ter-feed­ing, and its shape is not shared among any other fam­ily of birds. Their large bills con­sist of lay­ers of horny plates used to fil­ter out prey from the water. In con­trast to other birds, flamingo's bills are es­sen­tially re­versed. Flamingo's lower mandibles are larger than the upper, which is not rigidly at­tached to the skull. Thus when it eats, the upper mandible moves as op­posed to the lower, which is com­pletely re­versed from all birds and mam­mals. This re­ver­sal is largely at­trib­uted to flamin­gos' method of feed­ing by sub­merg­ing their heads up­side-down.

Sex­ual di­mor­phism is pre­sent in that males are slightly larger than fe­males, and fe­males ob­tain their adult color slightly ear­lier than males. Oth­er­wise both sexes are uni­formly col­ored. Adults have pri­mar­ily pink plumage with black flight feath­ers only vis­i­ble in flight. They fea­ture pale irises and a pale bill with pink and black on the tip. The legs are bright pink as well and end with pink, webbed feet. Be­cause there is no dif­fer­ence in col­oration be­tween the sexes, the bright pink col­oration is not likely to be any type of sex­ual sig­nal, though some re­searchers sug­gest it may func­tion equally for both sexes in se­lect­ing a mate as a sign of fit­ness due to over­all nu­tri­tion sta­tus.

Young birds are cov­ered with a downy-type feather when they first hatch. Both their legs and bill are dark gray in color, and only be­come pink as the bird ma­tures. The feath­ers are also ini­tially gray, but will grad­u­ally be re­placed by the pink, adult plumage as the flamingo ages and in­cor­po­rates carotenoid com­pounds from its diet into new growth. Ma­tu­rity gen­er­ally takes about three years, though some have been seen with ju­ve­nile plumage at up to five years of age. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Greater Flamingo", 2010; "On­line et­y­mol­ogy dic­tio­nary", 2010; "Phoeni­copterus ruber Greater Flamingo", 2010; "Tour du Valat", 2010; Fer, 2006; Gould, 1985; John­son, et al., 1993; King, 2008; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike
• male larger

• Range mass

  2.1 to 4.1 kg

  4.63 to 9.03 lb

• Range length

  120 to 145 cm

  47.24 to 57.09 in

• Range wingspan

  140 to 165 cm

  55.12 to 64.96 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Males and fe­males are gen­er­ally monog­a­mous, re­main­ing to­gether dur­ing in­cu­ba­tion and nur­tur­ing of the young. Mates will often re­main to­gether for many years, only choos­ing a new mate after the death of an­other.

Mat­ing in P. ruber is a com­plex af­fair. Their highly gre­gar­i­ous na­ture leads to dis­tinct be­hav­iors for se­lect­ing a mate and rear­ing the young af­ter­ward. The en­tire adult colony pre­pares for mat­ing. When a colony has found a suit­able lo­ca­tion, adults will gather near the drink­ing area. Though birds over one year of age can breed, only fully col­ored adults will take part in the breed­ing rit­ual. The birds will gather and begin dis­plays of their size and col­oration. They will elon­gate their necks, ex­tend their wings, and touch nearby in­di­vid­u­als with their beaks and wings. Though it is dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine due to the sim­i­lar ap­pear­ance be­tween males and fe­males, it ap­pears that groups of males con­gre­gate while dis­play­ing. Re­gard­less, the en­tire flock per­forms sim­i­lar dis­plays, of­ten­times for months be­fore the breed­ing it­self be­gins.

This breed­ing dis­play has var­i­ous po­si­tions which the flamin­gos adopt, and have been named by re­searchers. The head is first held ex­tended in the "head flag­ging," and waved rapidly back and forth while call­ing loudly. This is fol­lowed by a "wing salute," where the dark flight feath­ers are dis­played. The bird will then per­form a "twist preen," dip­ping the head be­neath a wing. The wings are again dis­played in an "in­verted wing salute," fol­lowed by stretch­ing a wing and a leg on one side of the body back­wards while dip­ping the head down­wards. The en­tire dance takes only sec­onds, and is re­peated con­stantly through­out the pre-pair­ing phase. This usu­ally takes place in shal­low water.

A fe­male will usu­ally move far­ther from the main group when she has found a suit­able mate and the male will fol­low her. Both will con­tinue mak­ing var­i­ous dis­play po­si­tions. Fe­males will sig­nal their readi­ness by keep­ing their head down near the water level. Males will add a head bob­bing dis­play, in­vert­ing their neck back­ward and rest­ing their head on their back. When the fe­male is ready for cop­u­la­tion, she will move to deeper water, and spread her wings to sig­nal the male. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; Allen, 1956; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Mating System
• monogamous

There is no set breed­ing sea­son for flamin­gos, with young being born at any time of year. How­ever, the colonies as a whole will usu­ally breed con­cur­rently over the warmer sea­sons fol­low­ing the rains, with most breed­ing in late spring or early sum­mer. This tim­ing is due more to avail­abil­ity of food sup­plies than any lim­i­ta­tions on sea­sonal fer­til­ity. The main fac­tors which are pre­lim­i­nary to mat­ing ap­pear to be an abun­dant food sup­ply, suit­able mud­flats for nest­ing and cre­at­ing the creche, and avail­abil­ity of fresh water.

When the mat­ing is com­plete, both birds will build a nest from the mud. The nest is a small mound ap­prox­i­mately twelve inches high, cir­cu­lar, and with a de­pressed cen­ter for the egg to be laid. When avail­able, bits of veg­e­ta­tion, twigs, or feath­ers are in­cor­po­rated into the nest. The male will usu­ally begin build­ing, with both part­ners even­tu­ally work­ing on the nest until the egg is laid.

The eggs are large and milky white, about the size of a large or­ange or grape­fruit. A pair of flamin­gos will usu­ally lay a sin­gle egg once per breed­ing cycle. In the rare cases where two eggs are laid, usu­ally only one will hatch. The egg is in­cu­bated by both par­ents, who take turns as the part­ner for­ages away from the nest. In­cu­ba­tion lasts 28 to 32 days, after which the chicks hatch weigh­ing 85 to 102 grams. Hatch­lings are semi­pre­co­cial with downy feath­ers and eyes open, but are ini­tially un­able to feed them­selves. Greater flamin­gos' spe­cial­ized beaks do not begin to de­velop until the young are 2 weeks old. Newly hatched chicks will re­main in the nest for the first five to eight days, at which time they gather with other chicks in groups called "creches." Chicks are reared by both par­ents until ready to fly at 65 to 90 days old. Par­ents are able to call and lo­cate their young within the creche and con­tinue to pro­vide care until the young fledges. ("Flamingo In­fo­book", 2009; "Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Phoeni­copterus ruber", 2008; Allen, 1956; Fer, 2006; Rooth, 1965; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Greater flamingos breed once yearly.

• Breeding season

  Greater flamingos breed after the rainy season, usually in spring or summer.

• Range eggs per season

  1 to 2

• Average eggs per season

  1

• Range time to hatching

  28 to 32 days

• Range fledging age

  65 to 90 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 to 5 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 to 5 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 years

Both male and fe­male par­ents pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant re­sources for their young. Both par­tic­i­pate in build­ing the nest and in­cu­ba­tion. A few days be­fore hatch­ing, the chick will begin to pro­duce vo­cal­iza­tions. Im­print­ing to the par­ents ini­tially starts through this vo­cal­iza­tion while still in the egg. Once newly hatched, a chick rec­og­nizes its par­ents and the par­ents rec­og­nize the chick. Par­ents pro­vide food for the young hatch­ling until the chick is ready to for­age for it­self. This nour­ish­ment is called "crop milk," a nu­tri­tious se­cre­tion from the oral crop of the par­ents. The milk is sim­i­lar to human milk, both in com­po­si­tion and be­cause it is stim­u­lated by the same hor­mone, pro­lactin. The crop milk of flamin­gos, how­ever, is red in color due to the pig­ments pre­sent in the diet. This pig­ment will even­tu­ally be in­cor­po­rated into the chick's feath­ers, the first step to­wards the char­ac­ter­is­tic col­oration of flamin­gos.

All adults can pro­duce this crop milk, but no par­ent will feed any chick other than its own. If a chick fails to im­print on its par­ents, no other birds will pro­vide for it and death will re­sult. Con­se­quently, im­print­ing is of vital im­por­tance. The chick is able to rec­og­nize its own par­ents' calls from up to one hun­dred me­ters away. When called, only the in­tended chick will re­spond, even with other chicks pre­sent within hear­ing range.

When the chick ini­tially leaves the nest, one of the par­ents will watch over it as it ex­plores its new en­vi­ron­ment, keep­ing other birds away until the young are fully in­te­grated into the creche. The chick leaves the nest to join the creche at 5 to 8 days old, yet it still re­quires parental care until it fledges at 65 to 90 days of age. ("Flamingo In­fo­book", 2009; "Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Greater Flamingo", 2010; "Tour du Valat", 2010; Allen, 1956; Kear and Du­plaix-Hall, 1975; Rooth, 1965; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Chicks gen­er­ally have a higher mor­tal­ity rate than adults. At birth, they are un­able to fend for them­selves and are fully de­pen­dent upon their par­ents. How­ever, if they are able to sur­vive into adult­hood, flamin­gos live an av­er­age lifes­pan of 25 years in the wild with a max­i­mum of 44 years. In cap­tiv­ity, flamin­gos live an av­er­age of 30 years. The old­est flamingo in the world is over 75 years old and re­sides at the Ade­laide Zoo in Aus­tralia. ("Flamingo In­fo­book", 2009; "Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Greater Flamingo", 2010; King, 2008; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  44 (high) years

• Range lifespan
  Status: captivity

  75 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  25 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: captivity

  30 (high) years

Be­hav­ior

Flamin­gos live, mate, and feed in large flocks, which can con­sist of thou­sands of in­di­vid­u­als. Flock­ing is gen­er­ally a pro­tec­tive mech­a­nism for a species, where an en­tire group can be alerted to the pres­ence of a preda­tor. In flamin­gos, this is the case as well, where the birds would in­di­vid­u­ally be at a dis­ad­van­tage with their heads bent down at the water line while feed­ing. Flamin­gos have thus evolved be­hav­iors which lead them to be some of the most so­cial of all birds. They use highly rit­u­al­ized dis­plays in mat­ing and in­ter­act­ing with other in­di­vid­u­als in the colony.

For ex­am­ple, a flamingo must often rest its head on its body to pre­vent mus­cle fa­tigue due to such a long neck. Straight­en­ing the neck to its full length can send sig­nals to other mem­bers of the flock. It is used in the mat­ing rit­ual to gar­ner at­ten­tion, and in threat dis­plays to in­tim­i­date other mem­bers of the flock. Even when rest­ing its head, an ac­tion as seem­ingly in­con­se­quen­tial as which side of the body to rest on will cause other mem­bers of the flock to react dif­fer­ently. Birds which rest their head on the left side will be­come in­volved in ag­gres­sive al­ter­ca­tions with other mem­bers more fre­quently. This may be a method of achiev­ing a so­cial hi­er­ar­chy within the flock, or a means of sex­ual com­pe­ti­tion be­tween mem­bers as they strive to achieve dom­i­nance.

Large colonies also are ben­e­fi­cial when it comes time to choose a mate. In a closely re­lated species of flamingo, lesser flamin­gos, large colony size was found to be of im­por­tance dur­ing breed­ing. This ef­fect was so pro­nounced that re­searchers were able to in­crease breed­ing suc­cess by plac­ing large mir­rors near the nest­ing sites so that flamin­gos ap­peared to be in a larger flock than was truly pre­sent. This be­hav­ior is thought to ex­tend to greater flamin­gos as well, as larger colonies have been shown to have more suc­cess in breed­ing.

Flamin­gos are colo­nial, yet when for­ag­ing for food each in­di­vid­ual flamingo be­comes fiercely ter­ri­to­r­ial. A bird takes up a "ter­ri­tory" and does not per­mit oth­ers nearby. If an­other comes too close, the of­fended bird will en­gage threat­en­ing dis­plays to warn the in­truder to leave. This threat dis­play shows the bird's size, as the flamingo will fully ex­tend its neck and open its wings and ruf­fle its feath­ers to ap­pear larger. If the warned is not heeded, the two will bite at each oth­ers beaks, in what is called "bill fenc­ing." This ag­gres­sion to other mem­bers of the flock is also used when pro­tect­ing young, and dur­ing the mat­ing rit­u­als.

The colony will es­tab­lish dis­tinct areas where birds can in­ter­act freely. The drink­ing area is one such place. In the hy­per­saline es­tu­ar­ies where flamin­gos fil­ter feed, salt in­take is quite high and flamin­gos re­quire a source of fresh water nearby. In con­trast to their be­hav­ior while feed­ing, the drink­ing area is much more per­mis­sive. This is also where the breed­ing rit­u­als begin as mem­bers of the flock are in close prox­im­ity to one an­other. Once breed­ing oc­curs, an area of the colony be­comes des­ig­nated for nest­ing, with most mem­bers build­ing nests and lay­ing eggs within close prox­im­ity of one an­other.

One of the most dis­tinct as­pects of flamingo be­hav­ior is their propen­sity to stand on one leg. A pos­ture is fre­quently adopted where a bird will stand perched on one of its long legs, the other will be bent at the knee, with the knee held askew from the body and the foot tucked un­der­neath. They seem to show no pref­er­ence for which leg they stand on, and often will al­ter­nate which leg is tucked up. Mul­ti­ple the­o­ries for this odd be­hav­ior have been put forth. Some sus­pected it to be more rest­ful, oth­ers thought it some­how pro­vided sta­bil­ity to their stance. Re­cently, re­searchers have found that flamin­gos as­sume the sin­gle leg stance more often when in water and it ap­pears that since a flamingo spends a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time in water, stand­ing on one foot may pro­vide for greater con­ser­va­tion of body heat. Be­cause only one leg at a time needs be sub­merged, the other can be tucked un­der­neath the body for warmth. Fur­ther­more, such a pos­ture may also help to re­duce par­a­site load by re­duc­ing the amount of the body that is un­der­wa­ter at any one time.

Flamin­gos will fly with their neck fully ex­tended and their feet held di­rectly be­hind them. As is com­mon in large birds, flight is achieved from a run­ning start to cre­ate lift over their wings. Flamin­gos have a range of hun­dreds of miles by air and will travel as a flock in a man­ner sim­i­lar to geese, with loud honk­ing and for­ma­tions in flight. Flamin­gos can take off from water or from land, and are able to alight on land or water as well. ("Flamingo In­fo­book", 2009; "Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Greater Flamingo", 2010; An­der­son and Williams, 2009; Fer, 2006; Kear and Du­plaix-Hall, 1975; Pick­er­ing and Du­verge, 1992; Rooth, 1965; Roy­nes­dal, 2007; Walker, 2009)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• sedentary
• colonial

Home Range

Though they can fly hun­dreds of miles if re­quired, their usual range is more lim­ited. They will tend to stay in an area where feed­ing and nest­ing is amenable, only leav­ing if con­di­tions for the flock be­come in­tol­er­a­ble in some man­ner. Flamingo flocks have moved based on de­ple­tion of food sources, ar­rival of preda­tors, or dis­tur­bance from hu­mans. (Allen, 1956; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

As a so­cial species liv­ing in large groups, in­traspe­cific com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be es­sen­tial. For in­stance, par­ents re­turn­ing to feed their young after for­ag­ing must find their own mate and off­spring. In a group with po­ten­tially tens of thou­sands of mem­bers, com­mu­ni­ca­tion serves a vital role in main­tain­ing colony co­he­sion and in­ter­ac­tions among other mem­bers.

Flamin­gos will com­mu­ni­cate with other mem­bers mainly by vo­cal­iza­tions. While in flight, they will call with loud honk­ing noises, which has been com­pared to the fa­mil­iar sound of geese. While on land, the vo­cal­iza­tions are softer in vol­ume. As part of im­print­ing, chicks begin mak­ing vo­cal­iza­tions while still in the egg. Par­ents learn to rec­og­nize their off­spring's unique voice be­fore it even hatches, and will rec­og­nize their off­spring af­ter­ward based on such calls.

Adults also rely on phys­i­cal po­si­tions. Vi­sual cues can be used for es­tab­lish­ing dom­i­nance within the flock. For in­stance, the choice of which side the head rests on can de­ter­mine ag­gres­sive­ness with oth­ers. Body lan­guage is also com­mu­ni­cated by the ex­tent to which feath­ers are ruf­fled, sim­i­lar to the way a cat may raise the hair along its back when threat­ened - a bird which makes it­self ap­pear larger is more threat­en­ing to a po­ten­tial op­po­nent. In such ag­gres­sive meet­ings, birds will also adopt a rit­ual which in­volves ma­neu­ver­ing the head and neck in a threat­en­ing fash­ion and pro­duc­ing a click­ing sound with the beak by snap­ping it open and shut quickly. If this warn­ing is ig­nored, birds may snap their bills at each other in "bill fenc­ing" until one backs down.

Greater flamin­gos also en­gage in phys­i­cal courtship dis­plays, in which males at­tract fe­males through spe­cific move­ments and pos­tures. Fe­males will com­mu­ni­cate in­ter­est by mim­ic­k­ing these move­ments back to the male.

It is un­clear if flamin­gos uti­lize any type of chem­i­cal or pheromone sig­nal­ing mech­a­nism. Adult flamin­gos will often delay mat­ing even after reach­ing sex­ual ma­tu­rity. Whether this un­usual be­hav­ior is a re­sponse to pheromone sig­nal­ing is not known.

Like all birds, greater flamin­gos per­ceive their en­vi­ron­ments through au­di­tory, tac­tile, vi­sual and chem­i­cal stim­uli. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; Kear and Du­plaix-Hall, 1975)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

The feed­ing be­hav­iors of flamin­gos are one of their most dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics. The flamingo's long legs are used to stir up sed­i­ment at the bot­tom of shal­low water. The flamingo's bill is equipped with rows of bony pro­jec­tions lin­ing the edges of the in­te­rior of their beaks, which func­tion as a sieve. The bird will take a mouth­ful of water and move its beak to pump water out, using this uniquely curved bill to fil­ter out tiny or­gan­isms to eat. Since the flamingo dips its head down into the water to eat, it ef­fec­tively feeds "up­side down," and the beak re­flects this in its mor­phol­ogy - both in the spoon-like shape of the bill and the ar­tic­u­la­tion of the joint of the upper jaw. In con­trast to mam­mals and other ver­te­brates, the upper jaw is able to move dur­ing feed­ing. To pic­ture this evo­lu­tion­ary ac­com­plish­ment, con­sider that since flamin­gos feed with their heads up­side down, the bill ap­pears right side up when the head is in­verted, an adap­ta­tion where a flamingo's upper bill is like an­other bird's lower bill. The phys­i­cal top half is the func­tional bot­tom half.

Flamin­gos are not se­lec­tive in their diet. Any­thing that can be cap­tured by their fil­tra­tion feed­ing method ap­pears to be con­sumed. Stom­achs of wild flamin­gos have been ex­am­ined, and flamin­gos ap­pear to eat or­ganic ooze (bac­te­ria and mi­cro­scopic or­gan­isms), worms, ne­ma­todes, mol­luscs, crus­taceans, in­sects and lar­vae, and even ver­te­brates such as small fish. They will also con­sume veg­etable mat­ter. Though they can sub­sist on a wide va­ri­ety of foods, small crus­taceans are re­spon­si­ble for the bright pink pig­ment that flamin­gos are fa­mous for. Carotenoid com­pounds from the crus­taceans is in­cor­po­rated into the plumage and skin around the legs, and an­i­mals be­come pale which do not re­ceive this nu­tri­ent. For in­stance, in­di­vid­u­als kept in zoos that are not fed a sup­ple­mented diet will not have the same col­oration as wild birds. The sun will cause this col­oration to fade over time, so it must be con­tin­u­ally sup­plied to keep the bird's color.

Flamin­gos' tongues have evolved to be quite mus­cu­lar in com­par­i­son to other birds as they are crit­i­cal to the pump­ing mech­a­nism re­quired to pump food through fil­ter sys­tem. The tongue was sa­vored as a del­i­cacy in an­cient Rome. (Er­lich, et al., 1988; Gould, 1985; Rooth, 1965)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods

• Animal Foods
• fish
• insects
• mollusks
• aquatic or marine worms
• aquatic crustaceans
• other marine invertebrates
• zooplankton

• Plant Foods
• algae
• phytoplankton

• Foraging Behavior
• filter-feeding

Pre­da­tion

Flamin­gos have very few preda­tors. This is prob­a­bly largely due to their choice of habi­tat. Hy­per­saline es­tu­ar­ies are not fa­vor­able for other species, and of­ten­times the colo­nial sites are on is­lands or other areas only eas­ily ac­ces­si­ble by flight. How­ever, var­i­ous species have been noted to prey on flamin­gos or their eggs. This short list in­cludes turkey vul­tures, foxes, bad­gers, and wild boars. Yel­low-legged gulls will prey on eggs and flight­less young. Hu­mans will also hunt flamin­gos for meat or for their eggs. (Allen, 1956; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Known Predators

  • Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura)
  • Foxes (Vulpes)
  • Badgers
  • Wild boars (Sus scrofa)
  • Yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Greater flamin­gos con­sume large amounts of aquatic in­ver­te­brates, crus­taceans, and algae and likely has a large im­pact on those pop­u­la­tions. Flamin­gos feed in shal­low bod­ies of water, and often use their large feet to stir or­gan­isms from the bot­tom up into the water col­umn. This ac­tiv­ity likely con­tributes to suf­fi­cient oxy­gena­tion and mix­ing of or­ganic ma­te­r­ial within these bod­ies of water and aids in avoid­ing anoxic con­di­tions. Greater flamingo eggs and young fall prey to local preda­tors, thus sup­port­ing these pop­u­la­tions.

Flamin­gos are also sus­cep­ti­ble to pathogens, most no­tably tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and avian flu. Large colonies are prime con­di­tions for spread of dis­ease if in­tro­duced.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Flamin­gos are oc­ca­sion­ally hunted by local peo­ple for food in some areas. Flamingo meat and eggs are sold at mar­kets, but oth­er­wise there is no eco­nomic im­pact to­wards hu­mans. Their bright pink col­oration fades with time, so greater flamingo feath­ers have not be­come an an­i­mal trade com­mod­ity. ("Flamingo In­fo­book", 2009; "Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Phoeni­copterus ruber Greater Flamingo", 2010; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There is no sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive im­pact of greater flamin­gos on hu­mans. Their pref­er­ence for iso­la­tion has kept them largely apart from human areas.

If there is a risk, it is the po­ten­tial for dis­ease trans­mis­sion. Large colonies are sus­cep­ti­ble to rapid spread of dis­ease and tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and avian flu, both human res­pi­ra­tory dis­eases, are com­mon in flamin­gos. How­ever, since flamin­gos pre­fer iso­la­tion and will read­ily flee hu­mans, the risk for trans­mis­sion is de­creased to only when hunted for human con­sump­tion. How­ever, this risk re­mains low and no se­ri­ous out­break of human dis­ease has been traced to flamingo pop­u­la­tions. (Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Greater flamin­gos are cur­rently con­sid­ered to be non-threat­ened. Their large range al­lows them to be more re­sis­tant to local changes of habi­tat that could be more crit­i­cal for shorter-ranged an­i­mals. Greater flamin­gos read­ily mi­grate in re­sponse to de­creases in habi­tat qual­ity. Fur­ther­more, the wild pop­u­la­tion is quite large and both the range and pop­u­la­tion num­bers of greater flamin­gos ap­pear to be in­creas­ing.

Nev­er­the­less, due to the pre­ferred habi­tat and nest­ing be­hav­iors of the flamingo, there are areas that con­ser­va­tion­ists could focus on. Be­cause the colony feeds as a large group, they are sus­cep­ti­ble to con­t­a­m­i­nated food sources. Though this poses no dan­ger for the species as a whole, in­di­vid­ual colonies can be af­fected by local con­t­a­m­i­nants in their food sup­ply. A flock in Spain, for in­stance, was af­flicted by a toxic strain of cyanobac­te­ria in their food sup­ply, from which many adults in a ma­ture flock per­ished. Be­cause their feed­ing lo­ca­tions are often down­stream of human ac­tiv­ity in less in­dus­tri­al­ized na­tions, habi­tat lim­i­ta­tion may be a risk in flamingo con­ser­va­tion.

Like­wise, human ex­cur­sion into the pre­ferred shore­line habi­tats of these birds may in­ter­rupt their nest­ing and breed­ing suc­cess. For in­stance, ac­tiv­i­ties as in­nocu­ous as pho­tog­ra­phy have been known to dis­rupt breed­ing colonies when the birds have con­sid­ered it a threat and left the re­gion. The iso­lated na­ture of their pre­ferred roosts mit­i­gates con­tact with hu­mans, and at pre­sent human ac­tiv­ity does not ap­pear to be af­fect­ing flamin­gos to any great ex­tent.

Greater flamin­gos are also quite eas­ily main­tained in cap­tiv­ity, and as pop­u­lar zoo an­i­mals there are large cap­tive pop­u­la­tions across the globe. Greater flamin­gos are thus likely to sur­vive in the rare event that their nat­ural habi­tat should face an un­fore­seen calamity. ("Phoeni­copterus ruber Greater Flamingo", 2010; "Tour du Valat", 2010; King, 2008; Roy­nes­dal, 2007)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix I

Other Com­ments

Flamingo spec­i­mens in the fos­sil record have been found that are re­mark­ably sim­i­lar to mod­ern day species dat­ing as far back as 30 mil­lion years ago, with ev­i­dence of more prim­i­tive forms dat­ing back to the ter­tiary pe­riod. De­pend­ing on the au­thor­ity, there are up to 6 dif­fer­ent species of flamin­gos: greater flamin­gos (Phoeni­copterus roseus), Caribbean flamin­gos (Phoeni­copterus ruber), Chilean flamin­gos (Phoeni­copterus chilen­sis), lesser flamin­gos (Phoeni­cona­ias minor), An­dean flamin­gos (Phoeni­co­par­rus and­i­nus), and James's flamin­gos (Phoeni­co­par­rus jamesi).

How­ever, Caribbean flamin­gos are often clas­si­fied as a sub­species of greater flamin­gos. When this con­ven­tion is fol­lowed, they are re­ferred to as Phoeni­copterus ruber ruber and Phoeni­copterus ruber roseus re­spec­tively. While this issue is not yet set­tled, there are cer­tain strong mor­pho­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics shared be­tween the two, most no­tably in the bill mor­phol­ogy. For the pur­poses of this ar­ti­cle, the two were con­sid­ered to be mem­bers of the same species. ("Focus on Flamin­gos", 2010; "Tour du Valat", 2010; Brown, 1959; Kear and Du­plaix-Hall, 1975)

Con­trib­u­tors

Adam Meziani (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Rachelle Ster­ling (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

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2010. "Focus on Flamin­gos" (On-line). Smith­son­ian Na­tional Zo­o­log­i­cal Park. Ac­cessed March 10, 2010 at http://​nationalzoo.​si.​edu/​Animals/​Birds/​Focus_​on_​flamingoes/​.

2010. "Greater Flamingo" (On-line). Na­tional Ge­o­graphic. Ac­cessed March 17, 2010 at http://​animals.​nationalgeographic.​com/​animals/​birds/​greater-flamingo/​.

2008. Mass Wildlife Mor­tal­ity due to Cyanobac­te­ria in the Do­nana Na­tional Park, Spain. Vet­eri­nary Record, 162: 317-318.

2010. "On­line et­y­mol­ogy dic­tio­nary" (On-line). Ac­cessed April 14, 2010 at http://​www.​etymonline.​com/​index.​php?​term=flamingo.

2010. "Phoeni­copterus ruber Greater Flamingo" (On-line). Ma­rine Bio. Ac­cessed March 10, 2010 at http://​marinebio.​org/​species.​asp?​id=170.

2008. "Phoeni­copterus ruber" (On-line). The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species. Ac­cessed March 20, 2010 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​apps/​redlist/​details/​150689/​0.

2010. "Tour du Valat" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 26, 2010 at http://​en.​tourduvalat.​org/​dossiers/​flamants_​roses.

Allen, R. 1956. The Flamin­gos: Their Life His­tory and Sur­vival. Hanover, NH: The Dart­mouth Print­ing Com­pany.

An­der­son, M., S. Williams. 2009. Why do Flamin­gos Stand on one Leg?. Zoo Bi­ol­ogy, 10.1002: on­line. Ac­cessed March 10, 2010 at http://​www3.​interscience.​wiley.​com/​journal/​122523098/​abstract?​CRETRY=1&​SRETRY=0.

Brown, L. 1959. The Mys­tery of the Flamin­gos. Lon­don: Bald­ing & Mansell Lim­ited.

Er­lich, P., D. Dobkin, D. Wheye. 1988. "Flamingo Feed­ing" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 10, 2010 at http://​www.​stanford.​edu/​group/​stanfordbirds/​text/​essays/​Flamingo_​Feeding.​html.

Fer, J. 2006. Com­plete Birds of North Amer­ica. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Na­tional Ge­o­graphic So­ci­ety.

Gould, S. 1985. The Flamingo's Smile. New York: W. W. Nor­ton & Com­pany.

John­son, A., F. Cezilly, V. Boy. 1993. "Sta­tion Bi­ologique de la Tour du Valat" (On-line). Plumage De­vel­op­ment and Mat­u­ra­tion in the Greater Flamingo Phoeni­copterus ruber roseus. Ac­cessed March 26, 2010 at http://​www.​flamingoresources.​org/​docs/​literature/​johnson_​plumage_​development.​pdf.

Kear, J., N. Du­plaix-Hall. 1975. Flamin­gos. Hert­ford­shire, Eng­land: T. & A. D. Poyser Lim­ited.

King, C. 2008. "Flamingo Re­source Cen­ter" (On-line). The po­ten­tial con­tri­bu­tion of cap­tive flamin­gos to re­search. Ac­cessed March 26, 2010 at http://​www.​flamingoresources.​org/​docs/​literature/​king_​use_​of_​captive_​flamingos_​in_​research.​pdf.

Olson, S., A. Fe­duc­cia. 1980. Re­la­tion­ships and Evo­lu­tion of Flamin­gos. Smith­son­ian Con­tri­bu­tions to Zo­ol­ogy, 316: 1-73.

Pick­er­ing, S., L. Du­verge. 1992. The in­flu­ence of vi­sual stim­uli pro­vided by mir­rors on the march­ing dis­plays of lesser flamin­gos. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 43: 1048-1050.

Rooth, J. 1965. The Flamin­gos on Bonaire: Habi­tat, Diet, and Re­pro­duc­tion of Phoeni­copterus ruber ruber. Utrecht, Hol­land: Foun­da­tion for Sci­en­tific Re­search in Suri­nam and The Nether­lands.

Roy­nes­dal, K. 2007. "The Flamingo" (On-line). Ac­cessed April 15, 2010 at http://​www.​bio.​davidson.​edu/​people/​vecase/​Behavior/​Spring2007/​Roynesdal/​index.​html.

Walker, M. 2009. "Why Flamin­gos Stand on one Leg" (On-line). BBC Earth News. Ac­cessed March 10, 2010 at http://​news.​bbc.​co.​uk/​earth/​hi/​earth_​news/​newsid_​8197000/​8197932.​stm.