Flamingos
Flamingos are striking wading birds belonging to the family Phoenicopteridae, with six recognized species that inhabit diverse regions across Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the West Indies. Known for their long legs, flexible necks, and vibrant plumage ranging from white to various shades of pink and red, these birds thrive in tropical and temperate waters, often found along the edges of lakes, oceans, and marshes. Their distinctive coloration comes from their diet, which includes blue-green algae and small organisms that contain carotenoids. Flamingos typically live in large colonies and engage in monogamous breeding, laying one egg in mud nests built by both parents.
These birds face threats from habitat destruction and pollution, with historical overhunting impacting populations, particularly of the American flamingo in the United States. While they have few natural predators, human activities pose significant risks. Conservation efforts are critical to ensure the survival of flamingos, as they are an important part of their ecosystems and are admired for their beauty and social behavior in the wild.
Flamingos
Flamingo Facts
Classification:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Subphylum: Vertebrata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Ciconiiformes
- Family: Phoenicopteridae (flamingos, three genera, six species)
- Geographical location: Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, the West Indies
- Habitat: Lagoons, lakes, and marshes
- Gestational period: One month of incubation
- Life span: Forty to fifty years in the wild
- Special anatomy: Long, storklike legs; bills that strain shellfish and other food out of water
Six species of flamingos make up the avian family Phoenicopteridae. Flamingos are beautiful water birds with long legs and luxuriant deep red, light red, pink, or white plumage. They inhabit Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and the West Indies. European flamingos migrate to Africa in the winter.
The birds usually live in tropical and temperate regions along oceans and lakes or in marshes. Flamingos are also found in the Andes mountains. It is thought that flamingos are pink to red because they eat varied amounts of blue-green algae and other organisms, which contain the substances that make carrots orange and tomatoes red such as carotene. Flamingos also eat diatoms, shrimp, and small mollusks.
Prior to 2014, the six extant flamingo species were placed in one genus, Phoenicopterus; after 2014, flamingos have been categorized into three genera: Phoenicopterus, Phoenicoparrus, and Phoeniconaias. There are two species within the Phoenicoparrus genus: the Andean flamingo (Phoenicoparrus andinus) and the James’s flamingo (Phoenicoparrus jamesi). The Phoeniconaias genus is monotypic, meaning it includes one species: the lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor). The Phoenicopterus genus includes the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), the Chilean flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis), and the greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus). The largest, most widespread species is the greater flamingo of Africa, the Middle East, India, and southern Europe.
Physical Characteristics of Flamingos
All flamingos have very long legs, webbed feet, and long, flexible necks. The long legs and webbed feet allow them to wade into fairly deep waters and stir up the muddy bottoms of lagoons and lakes, causing food to rise up closer to them. Their bills bend sharply about halfway from their ends. The upper mandible (beak half) is narrow and, when closed, fits tightly into the lower mandible. To feed, flamingos dip their heads into water upside down and scoop backward, taking in food-containing water. Then they press their mandibles together and push their tongues upward. As mandible edges have small ridges, the tongue pressure pushes water out and the strainer-like action retains the small animals and vegetation they feed on.
Different species are colored differently and have different sizes. Overall, adult flamingos attain heights and weights of 2.5 to 5.5 feet and weigh four to seven pounds, depending on species. Females are usually shorter and weigh less than males. Flamingo plumage is white, various pinks, or crimson red. Their legs, webbed feet, bills, and faces are red, pink, orange, or yellow.
The Flamingo Life Cycle
Most flamingos live in colonies which number tens to hundreds of thousands. The colonies are usually located in or around lagoons and lakes. A well-known, very populous example is Kenya’s Lake Nakuru, where millions of flamingos congregate. During breeding season, a male and female mate. It is believed that once mated, pairs of flamingos are generally monogamous.
The female lays one 3.5-ounce white egg in a depression atop a nest which is a conical mound of mud, one foot tall, built by the breeding pair. The pair then incubate the egg for about a month, until it hatches. On hatching, the baby flamingo stays in the nest for about three months. At first, it has gray, downy feathers and its legs and bill are pink. Its feathers turn pink and its bill curves into the adult shape as it grows. Both parents feed the young bird. It is given regurgitated food for as long as it remains in the nest, though it can feed itself thirty days after hatching. In the wild, flamingos may live for forty to fifty years.
Flamingo Conservation
Flamingos live in isolated habitats and have few natural predators except for humans. In the distant past, the ancient Romans hunted flamingos for their tasty tongues, thought to be a gastronomic delicacy. Regrettably, the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), once common in Florida, is now seen only rarely in the United States. They were hunted for their beautiful plumage faster than they could reproduce. This is unfortunate, because few sights are more beautiful than a flock of pink, rose, or scarlet flamingos standing together or flying in the sun of the United States tropics. The American flamingo is still plentiful in the Caribbean and South America, where it breeds in the Galapagos, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Cuba, Hispaniola, the Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos.
It might be thought advantageous to restock the wild with zoo-bred flamingos. However, this has not been possible because flamingos captured for zoos often die in transit, and those in zoos rarely breed successfully. It is hoped that with time and with the cessation of feather hunting, flamingos will reestablish themselves in the United States. A great threat to this prospect, and to flamingos elsewhere, is pollution and destruction of their habitats
Principal Terms
gastronomic: pertaining to the cooking and eating of fine foods
mandibles: the beaks of birds
plumage: the feathers of birds
Bibliography
Arnold, Caroline. Flamingo. New York: Morrow Junior, 1991. Print.
Brumfiel, Geoff. "Birds of a Feather Aren't Necessarily Related." All Things Considered. NPR, 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
McMillan, Bruce. Wild Flamingos. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Print.
Ogilvie, Malcolm, and Carol Ogilvie. Flamingos. Gloucester, England: A. Sutton, 1986. Print.
Torres, Chris R., et al. "A Multi-Locus Inference of the Evolutionary Diversification of Extant Flamingos (Phoenicopteridae)." BMC Evolutionary Biology 14.36 (2014). Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
Wade, Nicholas, ed. The Science Times Book of Birds. New York: Lyons Press, 1997. Print.
Zhang, Guojie, Erich D. Jarvis, and M. Thomas P. Gilbert. "A Flock of Genomes." Science 346.6215 (2014): 1308–9. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.