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The pink or reddish color of flamingos comes from carotenoids in their diet of animal and plant plankton. American flamingos are a brighter red color because of the beta carotene availability in their food while the lesser flamingos are a paler pink due to ingesting a smaller amount of this pigment.
Newly hatched flamingos are gray or white. Their feathers acquire a pink color by the time they are around 2 or 3 years old, due to their carotene-rich diet. The chemicals that color their feathers are the terpenoids: alpha- and beta-carotenes (similar to carotene in carrots). [10] An adult has 12 major feathers designed for flight on each wing.
Chilean flamingos live in large flocks in the wild and require crowded conditions to stimulate breeding. During breeding season, males and females display a variety of behaviors to attract mates, including head flagging—swiveling their heads from side-to-side in tandem—and wing salutes, where the wings are repeatedly opened and closed.
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They may reach sexual maturity between 3 and 6 years of age, though usually they do not reproduce until they are 6 years old. Their life expectancy of 40 years is one of the longest in birds. Adult American flamingos are smaller on average than greater flamingos, but are the largest flamingos in the Americas. They measure from 120 to 145 cm (47 ...
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Idalia likely responsible for first ever recorded sighting of a flamingo in Kentucky
The greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus) is the most widespread and largest species of the flamingo family. Common in the Old World, they are found in Northern (coastal) and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Subcontinent (south of the Himalayas), the Middle East, the Levant, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe.