(Part of the) common name of the species of the family Phoenicopteridae (Ciconiiformes, suborder Phoenicopteri) and in the plural the general term for the family (only 4 species) and suborder. Their systematic position is somewhat obscure, but they seem to be related to geese and herons. They are large birds (0.9-1.9 m in length) with long sinuous (in-and-out-bending) necks (extended in flight) and long legs ending in webbed feet. Their unique feature is the large bill, sharply decurved (downwards) in the middle and with a large, trough-like lower jaw and a smaller, lid-like upper jaw. The adult plumage is invariably of a pink or red colour and usually with black flight feathers. Flamingos have a bare face with an orange eye and the bill and legs are normally bright red or yellow. Some species make considerable migratory movements, mainly at night. They are highly gregarious and can occur in huge numbers; invariably at brackish or salt-water lakes (or lagoons), usually in warm climates. There they obtain their food from the water and mud by means of highly specialised filtering structures in the bill which is held upside down during feeding. The thick and fleshy tongue lies in a groove of the lower mandible and works the collected food masses into the throat. The food consists chiefly of blue-green algae and diatoms caught on fine hair-like lamellae which cover the inside of the mandibles, but the Greater Flamingo is less specialised in filtering out its food from the water and has a more varied diet including small molluscs and crustaceans. All flamingos breed in colonies where they build nests of truncated cones of mud with a shallow hole on top. The young don't develop filtering structures until they are about 9-10 weeks old and are totally dependent upon regurgitated food of their parents during that time. Until about 14 months the young birds have a grey plumage. The well-known Phoenicopterus roseus (Greater Flamingo) occurs in three different forms or subspecies; one Old World (distributed in southern France and Spain, Africa and south-west Asia), and two New World forms. The Lesser Flamingo is found in East and South Africa (including Madagascar), and north-west India. The remaining two species are rare and confined to the high Andes.

Alternative forms for flamingos : flamingo, Phoenicopteris.