The Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) is a large species (110-130 cm) closely related to Caribbean Flamingo and Greater Flamingo, with which it is sometimes considered conspecific. This article follows the treatment in Ibis (2002) 144 707-710.
It occurs in temperate South America. Like all flamingos it lays a single chalky white egg on a mud mound.
The plumage is pinker than the slightly larger Greater Flamingo, but less so than Caribbean Flamingo. It can be differentiated from these species by its greyish legs with pink "knees", and also by the larger amount of black on the bill (more than half).
The greater flamingo breeds in standing water or on low islands in shallow ponds, salt pans, and lagoons, building a conical mound of mud topped by a slight depression in which the one egg (rarely two) is laid.
The greater flamingo is classified as Phoenicopterus ruber, its vivid red subspecies as Phoenicopterus ruber ruber, and its paler subspecies as Phoenicopterus ruber roseus.
Flamingos (genus Phoenicopterus monotypic in family Phoenicopteridae) are gregarious wading birds, usually 3–5 feet in height, found in both the western and eastern hemispheres.
The young hatch with white plumage, but the feathers of a flamingo in adulthood range from light pink to bright red, due to carotenoids obtained from their food supply.
Flamingos are a model for plastic yard art which is apparently popular in some areas of the USA.
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