Size: Height; 110-130 cm 2.50 to 3.50 kg.

Habitat and Distribution: Coastal mudflats, estuaries, lagoons and salt-lakes at elevations up to 4,500 metres in central Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile (as you might expect!)

Age: Up to 50 years.

Groups and Breeding: Flamingos live in large groups of anything from a few individuals to several thousands. At least 15 individuals are necessary for successful breeding. They are monogamous and the breeding displays are prolonged and elaborate. Like all flamingos they lay a single egg on a muddy mound. Both the male and female will incubate the egg for 26- 31 days. Once they have hatched, the chicks will remain with their parents for around a week, after which they join large crèches that consist of up to 30,000 birds. Their parents will continue to feed them until they fledge at around 65 days after hatching. Chilean Flamingos do not usually breed until they are about 6 years old.

Diet: They feed mainly on crustaceans (such as shrimps), aquatic insects and snails that live in the water and mud.

• The knob at the center of the leg is often mistaken for the knee, but it is actually the ankle.
• The adults have bills specialized for filter feeding; the bills are bent in the middle, like a banana, and they have a large, trough-like lower mandible lined with ‘lamellae’ which are comb-like filtering structures. They swish their beaks through the water then turn it upside down and pump the water through the lamellae using their thick tongues at a rate of 3-4 times per second!
• In order to breed successfully, scientists have discovered that only the right colour pink will do! It is thought that this is because the natural pink colours of the flamingos’ feathers come from the crustaceans that they eat. Too little means that the feathers go white and this in turn signifies a poor diet to their potential mates.
• Chilean flamingos communicate with each other by loud honking, grunting, or howling similar to the noises made by geese. Parents can recognise their young in a crowd of 30,000 other youngsters from their call alone.
• When a chick first hatches both males and females produce ‘crop milk’ to feed the hatchling. This is a mixture rich in fat and protein and a substance called canthoaxnthin which gives the milk a bright red colour initially.
• They stand on one leg to conserve body heat, drawing the other leg close to the body and tucking the head under a wing.
• It is thought that flamingos, as a species, may be as old as 30 million years old!