Chilean flamingo

Physical features

Flamingos average 3 ½ feet tall and typically weight about six pounds.
The pink joint that is often mistaken as the knee is actually their ankle. The flamingo’s knee is located near its hip joint.
Flamingos eat by holding their head in an upside down position and filtering food out of the water. The flamingo’s beak is specially designed to act as a strainer.
Pairing behavior is demonstrated when the flamingos are seen feeding together, sleeping together, sleeping together, preening one another, bathing together, vocalizing together, showing paired aggression toward other flamingos, mounting, or sharing incubation of an egg.
Flamingos are not sexually dimorphic; males and females look alike though the males are slightly taller.

Range – South America, primarily Andes mountains
Habitat – freshwater, wetland areas at high elevation in breeding season moving to lower elevations/coast in winter

Wild – Freshwater sand fleas, tiny snail larvae and minute shrimp-like copepods; Beta-carotene, the orange pigment in the food they eat, produces the flamingos’ pink color.
Zoo – Processed dry feed in the form of small pellets

Flamingo chicks are gray when they hatch, and it generally takes 3 to 4 years for all of the gray coloration to transform into the adult pink plumage.

Chileans are the most numerous and widespread of the South American flamingos.
Flamingo numbers have been steadily declining in Chile due to egg poaching, drought, poor water management and competition with cities and mining companies for scarce water resources.

Flamingos will stand on one leg to rest, they change legs every 20 minutes or so. They generally tuck the other leg into their body feathers.. They do this whatever the temperature but it may help to conserve body heat in winter.
There are three different pools, for different activities and cleaning purposes. The nesting pool in the back right of the exhibit is where the flamingos build mud nests in which to lay their eggs. The feeding pool, in the back left of the exhibit is where the flamingos’ food is distributed. The lagoon, the largest pool in the front of the exhibit, is where the flamingos rest and bathe.
At Zoo Atlanta, each flamingo has a band on one leg. Males are banded on their right leg, females on the left. The bands are either red or yellow and each band has a number on it.

BirdLife International. (2006). Phoenicopterus chilensis. Retrieved March 20, 2008, from the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Web site: http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/15951/summ.
Chilean Flamingo (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2004, from the San Francisco Zoo Web site: http://www.sfzoo.org/cgi-bin/animals.py?ID=28
Chilean Flamingo (2004). Retrieved December 09, 2004, from the Roger Williams Park Zoo Web site: http://www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org/what_to_see/tropical_america/tropamerica_flamingo.cfm.
Chilean flamingo (2004). Retrieved December 09, 2004, from the Houston Zoo Web site: http://www.houstonzoo.org/Animal/viewAnimalDetail.asp?scriptaction=showanimal&Animal_Preview_Flag=0&animal_ID=7.

Updated March 2008