Chilean Flamingo

Conservation Status:
Stable

Description:
The flamingos’ pink plumage makes them unmistakable.  They are pale pink overall, with bright pink and black wing primaries.  They have yellowish-gray legs with contrasting red feet.  Their toes are webbed.  They have a broad beak that bends downward in the middle.  They stand 3-3 ½ feet tall.  Juveniles are gray with brown or pink markings, and will take 3-4 years to get their adult plumage.

Range:
Southern half of South America

Habitat:
Saltwater wetlands and lakes, from sea level to over 14,000 feet in elevation

Diet:
In the wild, they eat small aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans, insect larvae and pupae, and snails.  In the zoo, our flamingos eat Flamingo Fare prepared diet mixed with water.  They can also be seen foraging in puddles in their exhibit.

Life Cycle:
Flamingos breed in large flocks containing at least 50 pairs.  Flocks perform courtship displays as a group, sometimes for several months, before pairs split off to begin nesting.  They nest on the ground, building a cone-shaped nest of mud with a depression in the top.  They lay one white egg per clutch, and place it in the depression in the nest.  Incubation takes 27-31 days.  The chick has a straight beak, which will take on its adult shape as the chick grows.  The parents produce a secretion called “crop-milk” to feed the chick.  After the chick leaves the nest, it will stay in a nursery group, minded by an adult.  Parents can recognize their own chicks by voice.  The chicks begin to feed themselves at about 5 weeks.  When they are 3-4 years old, they gain their adult plumage and begin making breeding attempts, but they usually do not breed successfully until 6 years of age.  They live an average of 20-30 years in the wild, and sometimes up to 50 years.

Did You Know?

·        Flamingos’ strange-looking beaks allow them to strain small animals from the water.  The edges and inner parts of the beak are lined with short hairs called lamellae.  When flamingos feed, they open their beak to create a small gap, and swing the beak underwater, trapping small food particles in the lamellae.

·        The bend at mid-beak makes the opening a uniform size along its whole length, which facilitates filter-feeding.

·        Different species of flamingos can feed side by side without competing for food.  Each species has a slightly different beak shape, allowing them to filter different sizes of food particles. 

·        Flamingos are pink because of orange and yellow pigments called carotenoids in their food.  The flamingos can change those pigments into pink pigments, which collect in their feathers. 

·        Chilean flamingos often live at higher altitudes than other species.  They eat more freshwater algae, which has fewer carotenoids than marine algae.  As a result, they are not as effective at processing the pigments, so they appear paler than other flamingos.

·        Many flamingo flocks live in salt-water lakes, where other species cannot survive.  People do not have much use for the lakes either, so the flamingo’s habitat has been largely untouched by people.

·        Flamingos are commonly found in flocks of thousands, and flocks of millions are possible.

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