FlamingosAmerican FlamingoPhoenicopterus ruber
- ORDER: Phoenicopteriformes
- FAMILY: Phoenicopteridae
Basic Description
Flamingos are truly unmistakable birds of endless superlatives: dazzling pink plumagestiltlike legsan impossibly long neckand a bill that seems to have been bent in half. American Flamingos are highly social wading birds that breed in huge colonies in the Caribbean and then disperse to lagoons and estuaries where they use their unique bill to filter saltwater for small aquatic invertebrates. Pairs build a volcano-shaped mud cone that holds a single egg. A few days after hatchingchicks join communal nurserieswatched over by several adults.
More ID InfoOther Names
- Flamenco Rojo (Spanish)
- Flamant des Caraïbes (French)
- Cool Facts
- American Flamingos aren’t afraid to travel for a good meal. In some years birds breeding on the island of Bonaireoff Venezuelamake daily flights of 90 km (54 miles) to find food along the mainland coast.
- American Flamingos are a mostly tropical speciesbut storms sometimes scatter them to unexpected places. In the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia in 2023flamingos turned up in 17 U.S. states including KansasWisconsinand Pennsylvania.
- Nearly the entire American Flamingo population (about 200,000 individuals) occurs in the Caribbean. There is also a smallisolated population of 400–500 birds on the Galapagos Islands. Though they're the same speciesthese Galapagos flamingos are shorterlay smaller eggsbuild nests with rocks (rather than mud)and are somewhat genetically different from their Caribbean counterparts.
- The oldest American Flamingo on record was at least 49 years old. An individual recovered in the Bahamas in 2019 was originally banded there in 1970.