FlamingosAmerican FlamingoPhoenicopterus ruber
- ORDER: Phoenicopteriformes
- FAMILY: Phoenicopteridae
Basic Description
Flamingos are truly unmistakable birds of endless superlatives: dazzling pink plumage, stiltlike legs, an impossibly long neck, and 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 hatching, chicks join communal nurseries, watched 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 Bonaire, off Venezuela, make daily flights of 90 km (54 miles) to find food along the mainland coast.
- American Flamingos are a mostly tropical species, but storms sometimes scatter them to unexpected places. In the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia in 2023, flamingos turned up in 17 U.S. states including Kansas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
- Nearly the entire American Flamingo population (about 200,000 individuals) occurs in the Caribbean. There is also a small, isolated population of 400–500 birds on the Galapagos Islands. Though they're the same species, these Galapagos flamingos are shorter, lay smaller eggs, build 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.