ART PRINT A3 - ZOO Flamingo

The flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, lives in the wild in large flocks of up to 20,000 pairs at salt lakes and lagoons. The bird uses its 'sharp' call to stay together and to find its chicks within the large group. The animal is recognizable by its pink plumage, which it gets from eating microscopic crustaceans, algae, small fish and small vertebrates. It has a long, thin neck and a curved beak that acts like a sort of filter. That means when the flamingo dips its head to catch food, water and mud are filtered out through the beak. The bird also ‘steps’ while feeding, which helps it bring food up from the bottom.

In the wild, the flamingo can live up to 40 years and typically measures between 120 and 145 cm tall. 
The flamingo is gravid for 27–31 days, during which it incubates its single egg. The nest is built of mud and the chick is fed with crop milk, a secretion from the mucous membranes of the esophagus.

There are several reasons why the flamingo sometimes stands on one leg. By standing on just one leg, the bird keeps warmer and also gets rest. The way the flamingo maintains balance is by locking the ankle joint, so the leg becomes stable and the weight is distributed so it doesn't tip to the side.

Since zoos are not allowed to feed flamingos small crustaceans and algae, the pigment is provided in other ways. This is done by giving flamingos canthaxanthin — a pigment closely related to the pigment beta-carotene, which is also found in carrots. At first the flamingos were given lots of paprika, but that didn't colour them enough.

All art prints in the zoo series are also available in A4