Party Animals. Try This! Explore More. A flamingo's color varies depending on what it eats. Common Name: Greater Flamingo. Scientific Name: Phoenicopterus roseus. Type: Birds. Diet: Omnivore. Group Name: Colony. Size: 36 to 50 inches; wingspan: 60 inches. Weight: 8. The Greater Flamingo is the largest species of flamingo and stands around 1. The Greater Flamingo has a wingspan of between 1. Their long, downward bending bills are pink with a black tip and their long, thin legs are also pink.
Greater Flamingos have peculiar shaped heads on long, lean, curved necks with a distinctive downward bend. Flamingos have yellow eyes. Greater Flamingos are found in a variety of saltwater habitats including salt or alkaline lakes, estuaries, shallow coastal lagoons and mudflats.
The Greater Flamingo rarely inhabits areas of freshwater other than using freshwater inlets for bathing and drinking. Greater Flamingos that live outside the tropics often migrate to warmer climates for the winter months. Greater Flamingos are omnivores and filter-feeders. Flamingos mainly feed during the day and use their long legs and webbed feet to stir up the bottom of the water where they then sweep their bills upside down through the water. Water is sucked in through the partly opened bill.
As it is squeezed out again by the tongue, a row of spines or lamellae along the edge of the bill filter out the tasty morsels within. They usually feed with their head fully immersed in the water and they can remain that way for up to 20 seconds. Flamingos pump their tongues up and down, 5 — 6 times per second, pushing the water out of their beak.
Flamingos also feed up on mollusks, plankton, crabs, tiny fish and insect larvae. Plant material is also eaten, including grass seeds and shoots, decaying leaves and algae.
Flamingo feathers are tinged a beautiful rose pink colour due to coloured materials called carotenoids in the tiny shrimps that they feed on. If they do not eat the shrimps, their feathers turn pale. Flamingos in captivity tend to be paler than wild species unless their diet is supplemented. In captivity, they are fed special food that contains these natural pigments to ensure that their feathers are coloured.
Greater Flamingos are gregarious birds and live together in flocks or dense colonies numbering between 10 — 12 birds, such as those in the Galapagos Islands, to over 20, birds on the African salt lakes. In exceptional cases up to , pairs have been observed. These large flocks give them safety in numbers. Flocks remain closely packed and individuals are protected from predators by the other flock members while they have their heads down in the mud when feeding.
Breeding seasons vary with location, occurring in some areas at irregular intervals, following the rains. Nest-building is done in pairs. A single chalky-white egg is laid, rarely two. Both parents share the incubation of days. Both parents feed the chick, with the typical milk that is secreted in the adults' upper digestive tract. Chicks fledges between 65 and 90 days after hatching and become reproductively mature between 4 and 6 years of age.
Greater flamingos are threatened by human disturbance and lowering water levels, which increases the salinity of sites where they feed and so can affect food resources, or cause thick soda deposits which can harm the legs of chicks.
The potential effects of climate change on rainfall and sea level may therefore impact breeding sites seriously in the future. Further threats to greater flamingos include disease, pollution, lead poisoning from the ingesting of lead shot , and habitat loss as a result of industrial and harbor development or drainage of the wetlands for agriculture.
Large numbers of greater flamingos in Egypt are shot or captured for sale in markets, and the collection of eggs remains a threat in some areas, such as in Algeria. The Palearctic population including West Africa, Iran, and Kazakhstan estimated to be between , and , birds; the South West and South Asian populations - , birds; the sub-Saharan African populations - between , and , birds.
The Palearctic population seems to be increasing, while the sub-Saharan African and Asian populations seem to be stable. Greater Flamingo Pink flamingo, Rosy flamingo. Phoenicopterus roseus. Population size. Life Span. Photos with Greater Flamingo. Geography Continents. Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania. Biome Lakes. Climate zones Tropical. Habits and Lifestyle Greater flamingos are very social. Group name. Wading birds, Semiaquatic, Soaring birds, Shorebirds, Altricial.
Diet and Nutrition Greater flamingos are carnivores, eating mainly crustaceans, mollusks, worms, crabs, insects, and sometimes small fish.
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