Caribbean Flamingo
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| Caribbean Flamingo | ||||||||||||||
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| Missing image Flamingo.caribbean.arp.jpg Caribbean Flamingo | ||||||||||||||
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| Phoenicopterus ruber Linnaeus, 1758 |
The Caribbean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) is a large species of flamingo closely related to the Greater Flamingo and Chilean Flamingo, with which it is sometimes considered conspecific. This article follows the treatment in Ibis (2002) 144 707-710.
It breeds in the Galapagos Islands, coastal Colombia and Venezuela and nearby islands, the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and in the northern Caribbean in the Bahamas, Hispaniola, Cuba and Turks and Caicos. Most sightings in southern Florida are of escapes, although some may be genuining wanderers from Cuba.
The habitat is similar to that of its relatives, including saline lagoons, mudflats and shallow brackish coastal or inland lakes. Like all flamingos, it lays a single chalky white egg on a mud mound.
The Caribbean Flamingo is 120–140 cm in length; males weigh 2.8 kg and females 2.2 kg. Most of the plumage is pink, giving rise to its earlier name of Rosy Flamingo and differentiating adults from the much paler European species. The wing coverts are red, and the primary and secondary flight feathers are black. It is the only flamingo which naturally occurs in North America.
Phoenicopterus_ruber.jpg
Pink flamingo
The bill is pink with a restricted black tip, and the legs are entirely pink. The call is a goose-like honking.nl:Amerikaanse flamingo pl:Czerwonak (ptak)