Currently no information has been found about the metabolic rate of Chilean flamingos. The legs are relatively shorter compared to those of other flamingos. However, only Chilean flamingos have green-grayish to light blue colored legs with deep pink joints and toes. All flamingos lack feathers on the lower part of the tibia (above the heel) and their legs are slightly bent. Chilean flamingos in general are shorter than greater flamingos. ![]() Flamingos molt once every breeding cycle and the only distinguishing feature between males and females is that males are slightly larger. ( Houston Zoo, 2006 Sibley, 2000 Soothill and Soothill, 1982)Ĭhilean flamingos have a wingspan of 127 to 153 cm, weigh between 2.5 and 3.5 kg, and are 79 to 145 cm tall. Only after 2 to 3 years, do fledglings lose their gray feathers and gain the adult pink and crimson plumage. Older juveniles have gray plumage, with brown and pink markings, and black or gray legs and bills. At hatching, chicks have thick, light gray down, straight, pink bills, and swollen, pink legs, which turn black within a week. ![]() In addition to the pink plumage, they have black primary and secondary wing feathers lined with bright crimson along the edge. Like all adult flamingos, Chilean flamingos have pink plumage, but the plumage is mostly whitish with a faint pink tinge. ( Austin, 1961 Flegg, 1986 Houston Zoo, 2006 National Geographic Society, 1983 Pearson, 1936 Perrins and Harrison, 1979 Perrins and Middleton, 1985 Sibley, 2000 Soothill and Soothill, 1982 The Great Plains Zoo & Delbridge Museum, 2005 Thomson, 1964 Wilson, 1829) ![]() Like greater flamingos, the upper mandible of Chilean flamingos is “shallow keeled” and only partially covered with lamellae. Lamellae, comb-like filtering structures, line both jaws, and the tongue is thick and fleshy. The adults have bills specialized for filter feeding the bills are bent in the middle, banana-shaped, with a small, lid-like upper mandible and a large, trough-like lower mandible. The bill of Chilean flamingos consists of two main colors: the terminal half is black and the rest is white. Their long necks are not the result of a multiplication of the vertebrae, since they have only 19 cervical vertebrae, but rather to the elongation of the vertebral column bones.
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