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Few birds are as distinctive as flamingos. Scientists once grouped flamingos with storks and ibises. But a study of flamingo DNA delivered a stunning surprise: their closest living relatives appear to be grebes. And an even bigger surprise: DNA indicates that flamingos and grebes share an ancestry with certain land birds, like doves. So flamingos evolved long legs and necks, just as herons and storks did. But they belong on a completely different branch of the tree of life.
This story was produced with support from the Bobolink Foundation.
BirdNote®
Just What Are Flamingos?
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
[Music of the Caribbean]
With fancy pink feathers, legs like stilts, and a beak shaped like a boomerang, few birds are as wildly distinctive as flamingos. We may picture them wading in tropical lagoons on the Caribbean, but the world’s six species are far flung, found across much of South America, Africa, southern Europe, and western India.
The birds’ pink color is derived from the beta-carotene in the tiny crustaceans, algae, and plankton that are the flamingos’ main source of food.
[Greater Flamingo calls, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/104911, 0.14-.18
Just looking at this wading bird with extra long legs and neck, you might think it’s related to other birds with those features. Herons, perhaps. Scientists once grouped flamingos with storks and ibises. But looks can be deceiving. A study of their DNA delivered a stunning surprise: Flamingos’ closest living relatives appear to be the smallish waterbirds known as grebes. An even bigger surprise: DNA indicates that flamingos and grebes share an ancestry not with other water birds, but with very different looking land birds, like doves!
So flamingos evolved long legs and necks, just as herons and storks did. But they belong on a completely different branch of the tree of life.
You can see amazing photos of Flamingos when you visit our website BirdNote.org. I’m Mary McCann.
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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. 104911 recorded by Linda R Macaulay.
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Sallie Bodie
© 2016 Tune In to Nature.org December 2016 / 2021 Narrator: Mary McCann
ID# flamingo-01-2016-12-01 flamingo-01
https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/research-posts/mapping-the-big-…
https://www.rt.com/news/213935-scientists-avian-tree-life/
http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List3.html" http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List3.html
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Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Mary McCann
NarratorSights & Sounds
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