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Phoenicoparrus is a genus of birds in the flamingo family Phoenicopteridae. First established by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856, [ 2 ] it contains two species. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
The greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus) is the most widespread and largest species of the flamingo family. Common in the Old World, they are found in Northern (coastal) and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Subcontinent (south of the Himalayas), the Middle East, the Levant, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe.
The greater flamingo is the tallest of the six different species of flamingos, standing at 3.9 to 4.7 feet (1.2 to 1.4 m) with a weight up to 7.7 pounds (3.5 kg), and the shortest flamingo species (the lesser) has a height of 2.6 feet (0.8 m) and weighs 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg).
The genus Phoenicopterus was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae to accommodate a single species, the American flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber. [1] [2] The genus name is Latin for "flamingo". [3]
[1] [10] The population in the Galápagos Islands differs genetically from that in the Caribbean; the Galápagos flamingos are significantly smaller, exhibit sexual dimorphism in body shape, and lay smaller eggs. [11] They are sometimes separated as Phoenicopterus ruber glyphorhynchus. [12]
The Chilean flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) is a species of large flamingo at a height of 110–130 cm (43–51 in) closely related to the American flamingo and the greater flamingo, with which it was sometimes considered conspecific. [4] The species is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.
It is the largest flamingo in the Andes and is one of the two heaviest living flamingos alongside the taller greater flamingo. [5] Reportedly body mass of the Andean flamingo has ranged from 1.5 to 4.9 kg (3.3 to 10.8 lb), height from 1 to 1.4 m (3 ft 3 in to 4 ft 7 in) and wingspan from 1.4 to 1.6 m (4 ft 7 in to 5 ft 3 in). [5] [6]
It was at least 83 years old, having arrived at the zoo from either Cairo or Hamburg (records are unclear) [1] in either 1933, 1930, 1925, or 1919 (the dates of the last four importations of greater flamingos to the Adelaide Zoo) [2] at which point it was already a full-grown adult. [3]