Andean Flamingo

• GeneralIt lives in hypersaline water where ice forms around its legs at night.
• It is migratory and can cover as much as 700 miles in a single day between the summer salt flats and the winter wetlands.
• Together with James's flamingo it forms the genus Phoenicoparrus, which differs from the other flamingos in its very deep lower mandible, the extremely long filtering filaments of the upper jaw and the complete absence of a hind toe.
• Its chicks accumulate more arsenic and iron in their bodies than the adults, taken up from the sediments of the salt lakes where they feed.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

High-altitude salt flats and saline lagoons (3,500-4,500 m)

Birth weight

Born covered in greyish down and with a straight bill, which curves as it grows

Size at birth

It leaves the nest within a few days to join the chick creches

Sexual maturity

5-6 years

Gestation / incubation

27-31 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

It nests in colonies, sometimes mixed with the other flamingo species. It builds a mud nest shaped like a cup or cone; exceptionally it makes do with a hollow in the ground. Nesting is not annual and breeding rates are consistently low

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List; Birds of the World (Cornell Lab); Ministerio del Medio Ambiente de Chile (Reglamento de Clasificación de Especies, 11.º proceso); Caziani y Derlindati 1996; Chebez, Los que se van

Best time: In the austral summer on the high-altitude salt flats; in winter it descends to lower wetlands