Six flamingo species split four American, two Old World
Flamingos are long-legged waders in family Phoenicopteridae, sole survivors of order Phoenicopteriformes. Four species range the Americas and Caribbean; two inhabit Afro-Eurasia—six living species in recent tallies. Their name traces to Portuguese or Spanish flamengo, “flame-coloured,” from Provençal flamenc.
The genus Phoenicopterus comes from Greek for crimson-feathered, and its relatives Phoeniconaias and Phoenicoparrus mean red water nymph and red bird of omen. Charles Lucien Bonaparte set up the family in 1831. A crowd of them is called a flamboyance or a stand. They were long filed beside storks, ibises and spoonbills, but molecular work and at least eleven body traits found in no other birds now pair them with grebes, a union dubbed Mirandornithes, the miraculous birds.
All six species once shared one genus; a 2014 paper split them in two, HBW listed three genera in 2020, and a 2026 study proposed going back to two. The greater and American flamingos are the giants, standing 120 to 145 centimetres and weighing up to about 4.1 kilograms, while the lesser flamingo stands only 80 to 90 centimetres.
What looks like a backward knee is really the ankle. Standing on one leg may save heat in cold water, yet they do it in warm water too, and the reason remains unsettled. Webbed feet help them swim and stamp up food. They fly well: two unclipped African birds escaped Wichita’s zoo in 2005, and one was spotted in Texas fourteen years later.
Chicks hatch greyish, and adults turn pink to red from carotenoids in plankton, which liver enzymes convert into pigment; a pale bird is usually undernourished. They feed with the bill upside down, straining brine shrimp, cyanobacteria and molluscs through hair-like lamellae, and can lift the upper jaw as well as drop the lower. Glands near the eyes shed excess salt, and honking calls help parents find their chicks.
Source: Flamingo
