Chilean Flamingo
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| Chilean Flamingo | ||||||||||||||
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 At the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre
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| Phoenicopterus chilensis Molina, 1782 |
The Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) is a large species (110-130 cm) closely related to Caribbean Flamingo and Greater Flamingo, with which it was sometimes considered conspecific. This article follows the treatment in Ibis (2002) 144 707-710.
It breeds in temperate South America from Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Argentina and east to Brazil; it has been introduced into Germany and the Netherlands (colony on the border, Zwilbrockervenn) . 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).
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 Chilean Flamingo at the Las Vegas Zoo |
 Group of Chilean Flamingos at the Houston Zoo |
 Chilean flamingo at the Adelaide Zoo |
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[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2008). Phoenicopterus chilensis. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on 11 May 2008. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
