Animals
Class: Bird
Biome:
Conservation Status: Near Threatened
About this animal
The pink flamingo is a social animal which lives in large flocks of up to several thousand individuals. It occurs in temperate South America from Peru to southern Argentina and Chile, including parts of Bolivia, Paraguay, and southern Brazil .Standing over 80cm tall with an average wingspan of 95-100cm, Chilean flamingoes are a formidable sight! It’s pink colouration comes from a pigment that the animal consumes. In captivity, this pigment must be manufactured into the flamingo's food, or else the animal would be a dull buff colour. Flamingos require shallow water and lots of mud; nests are built by surrounding the egg with a large pile of mud, which is then incubated for around thirty days. It nests in dense colonies in remote wetlands. The bill is a highly sophisticated filter pump, specialised for catching tiny shrimps, which are the source of the pink colour in their feathers. The male and female will stay together and the single egg is cared for by both parents.
Did you know?
The flamingo has the longest neck of all birds in comparison to its body. It has 17 vertebrae.
