Lesser Flamingo
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Lesser Flamingo ( Phoeniconaias minor ) |
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| Phoeniconaias minor | ||||||||||
| ( E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire , 1798) |
The Lesser Flamingo ( Phoeniconaias minor ) is a bird from the order of the flamingos (Phoenicopteriformes) and their smallest representatives that lives on salt lakes . It lives primarily in Africa , feeds mainly on cyanobacteria and diatoms , and to a lesser extent also on small, aquatic invertebrates such as rotifers . He can live to be 50 years old.
description
The Lesser Flamingo reaches a crown height of a maximum of one meter, whereby the stilt-like legs and the long neck make up a large part. It is therefore not surprising that this vertex height, which is unusually large for birds, only weighs a maximum of two kilograms. The wingspan is 95 to 100 cm. In contrast to the other flamingo species , which are generally very similar , the dark red beak, black at the tip and generally dark when viewed from a distance, is relatively long. Like all flamingos, the Lesser Flamingo is a common beak. The lower half of the beak is rigid, while the upper half is movable.
The coloring of the animals ranges from white with a touch of pink to dark pink. This color is not genetically determined, but is caused by the carotenoids canthaxanthin , phoenicoxanthin and astaxanthin (these are xanthophylls that come from brine shrimp). The pigments are deposited in the plumage and cause the typical pink color, which subsides and changes to white if the Lesser Flamingo does not consume any carotenoids. The wings with the black wing tips cover the two halves of the boat-shaped body almost completely. This boat-shaped body likely evolved to allow swimming in a duck-like posture. In fact, Lesser Flamingos swim significantly more frequently than other species in the family . The tips of the wings are black, the tail, like other flamingos, is not very pronounced.
The eyes with yellow, orange or red irises are relatively small. The bright red, slender legs of flamingos are the longest bird legs in the world in relation to their body size. The feet, which are also bright red in adults, have three toes pointing forward and one pointing backward. The three front toes are connected by webbed feet, which make walking on flat, muddy surfaces easier and which are helpful when swimming.
Females are slightly slimmer than males. Juvenile animals are mostly gray and dark dashed, the red of the wings is missing, beak, legs and feet are also gray. The young animals acquire adult fletching after 3 to 4 years.
distribution and habitat
distribution
Lesser flamingo populations predominantly breed in the Rift Valley lakes of East Africa in Ethiopia , Kenya and Tanzania . There are three smaller brood assemblies in western and southern Africa and in Asia in India and Pakistan . They occur non-brooding in almost every country in Sub-Saharan Africa and from the Arabian Peninsula to Pakistan. The largest population with an estimated 1.5 to 2.6 million birds is found in the soda lakes of the East African Trench , of which around 105,000 are found at the soda lake in Tanzania. The smaller populations in the Rann von Kachchh in northwestern India number around 390,000, those in western and southern Africa together around 70,000 to 90,000 birds.
habitat
Lesser flamingos mainly live on shallow salt and soda lakes , where hardly any other animals live. Depending on the conditions and the season, they move between different salt lakes, such as the southern Ethiopian salt lakes, the Kenyan Nakuru , Turkana , Bogoria and Magadi salt lakes , the southern lakes in the East African rift valley to the salt lakes in Namibia and Botswana. Lesser flamingos have developed numerous adaptations to this extreme habitat, which apart from them and a few other flamingos hardly any other large living creature knows how to use it well. One of the most important adaptations to this is the bare legs: they withstand the caustic water and are long enough to hold the flamingos well above the brine. In fact, Lesser Flamingos can tolerate large amounts of dissolved chemicals in their waters and, moreover, water temperatures of 70 ° C, which is a necessary adjustment due to the tectonically active location of many flamingo waters, and temperatures of 50 ° C can also be reached directly above the lake. From this one can conclude that the prehistoric flamingos (insofar as their first representatives resembled today's) have been practically unchanged for 30 million years, because they adapted to these extreme conditions early on and had no real competition.
Social structure
Lesser flamingos form large flocks that move around nomadically. The breeding colonies of the Lesser Flamingos sometimes contain more than 1 million birds and are among the largest bird populations in the world. Flamingos, including the Lesser Flamingo, are among the most sociable birds in the world, and even courtship ( courtship by the males for the females) takes place in groups.
nutrition
The beak of the Lesser Flamingo has turned into a highly specialized filter device. The beak is large and bent down in the middle. Inside there are several rows of horny lamellae, which in turn are covered with tiny bristles.
The Lesser Flamingos eat cyanobacteria (especially Spirulina platensis ), diatoms and, to a lesser extent, small, aquatic invertebrates such as rotifers . With a diameter of 40 to 200 micrometers, these are too small to have much nutritional value for other birds. The Lesser Flamingo claims this food source almost to itself and at suitable lakes there is a correspondingly large gathering of this species.
Flamingos like the Lesser Flamingo have a way of eating these tiny forms of life that is unique in the bird kingdom, but not in the animal kingdom: They "filter" their food out of the water, just like the whales. When filtering, the Lesser Flamingo holds its beak upside down in the water and opens its beak so wide that a small gap is created. The Lesser Flamingos then pull their big tongues back, creating a negative pressure that sucks in the water with the microorganisms. The water with the cyanobacteria is now drawn into the beak of the flamingo, because the small bristles are created and thus let the small living things through. Then he puts his tongue into the water in his beak, which pushes it out again. The small bristles are set up, the microorganisms stick to them and are thus filtered out. When the flamingo retracts its tongue during the next filtering process, it pulls in the catch from the last filter, which is still hanging on the bristles, with its fleshy tongue. While eating, the Lesser Flamingo swings its beak back and forth quickly in shallow water, sucking water into its beak or pressing it out again 17 times per second. In this way, the salt intake is also kept within limits. The fluid requirement is covered by drinking slightly salty water, fresh water from springs or rainwater.
Food consumption
Estimates are available of the food consumption of the Lesser Flamingo. According to Ekkehard Vareschi, the Lesser Flamingo colony on Lake Nakuru filters around 36 tons of Spirulina platensis from the water every day, with a population of around 180,000 tons. The losses caused by the flamingos are offset by an equally high rate of reproduction.
Coexistence with the greater flamingo
At most of the places where dwarf flamingos, there are also pink flamingos . The different species live close together, but do not compete for food. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, greater flamingos seek their food in the muddy bottoms of the salt lakes, while the lesser flamingos filter their food near the surface of the water. Second, the filter beaks are built differently: those of the Lesser Flamingo are extremely fine in order to be able to filter the cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis out of the water at all. This food is too small for the greater flamingo while the food of the greater flamingo, Artemia salina , is too large for the fine lamellae of the lesser flamingo. The Lesser Flamingo and Greater Flamingo do not compete with each other, although they look for food right next to each other.
Migratory behavior
The nomadic migration behavior of the Lesser Flamingos has not yet been clarified. The animals move around between the lakes at night because of the strongly varying stocks of Spirulina platensis , because mostly the organisms on which the Lesser Flamingos feed have a short flowering period in which they appear in abundance and then decline again sharply. Then the Lesser Flamingos are forced to move to another lake with organism bloom. Lakes once visited are often not visited for years. Important factors in this migratory behavior may also still tectonics , droughts , rains , floods , droughts and arguably more other factors.
Reproduction
Mating period and breeding colonies
Reproductive behavior is just as unpredictable as migration behavior. Here, too, it is unclear which factors induce the Lesser Flamingos to breed and when. Usually an individual reproduces every 2 years, but also annually in good times, and sometimes not for years in bad times. This results in 15–30 broods per flamingo in life. For a long time it was unknown where the Lesser Flamingo breeds, but it is now known that the flamingos breed in the Rift Valley and in the vicinity on Lake Natron, the main breeding area of the Lesser Flamingos. The other, separate occurrences breed on other salt lakes , salt pans or coastal lagoons. There are only three main breeding areas in Africa and one more in India.
The courtship
The males courting together in large organizations, a very unusual behavior in the animal kingdom. The courtship rituals are strictly ritualized and can be compared with a ballet-like "dance". The flamingos beat their wings in perfect synchronization , nod their heads rhythmically, march in a group through the lake and make noises. If a female has chosen a male, this partnership is monogamous and lasts for many years to lifelong.
Eggs and nests
When the water level in Lake Natron sinks, muddy islands form on which the Lesser Flamingos breed. This is also where they make their nests . The nests of the Lesser Flamingos are 40 cm high, made of mud truncated cones with a hollow at the top. The female flamingo lays its only elongated egg in this hollow . The tower-like construction has several advantages: if the caustic water of the Natronsee rises as a result of heavy rainfall, the nests are not immediately flooded and the entire brood is lost. The other reason is the temperatures. If the nest of the Lesser Flamingo were a ground nest, the eggs would have to withstand temperatures of sometimes over 50 ° C at noon. However, on top of the nesting cone, the temperature rarely rises above 35 ° C. Males and females share the breeding business until after 27 to 31 days a flamingo chick with a gray-brown downy coat and gray legs hatches.
Raising the young
After hatching, the young Lesser Flamingos are fed a type of crop milk that is formed in the parents' esophagus, which is similar to the feeding of young pigeons and penguins. The milk is also mixed with carotene and blood from the parent animals, which means that this crop milk is in no way inferior to the nutritional value of mammalian milk. After a week in the nest, the young leave the nest independently but accompanied by their parents. The flamingo chick joins a large group of chicks, the so-called "cribs". A crib can contain more than 300,000 lesser flamingo chicks, which are guarded by some parent animals. The young are still fed by their parents, and despite the large number of chicks, the parents recognize their own chick by its screaming and only feed this one with their nutritious crop milk.
After about a week in the manger, the beak, which was straight when it hatched, begins to take on the typical curvature of the adult Lesser Flamingo. The chicks start foraging for food at 4 to 6 weeks of age, but they are still being fed as their filtering apparatus is not yet sufficiently developed to catch enough Spirulina platensis . They are only able to do this at 10 weeks. They can fly at 11 weeks. Their youthful plumage after the gray-brown phase is pinkish-brown, with 3 to 4 years of age they have developed the magnificent plumage of adults, and at 6 years of age they will breed for the first time . Lesser flamingos can live to be 50 years old.
Natural enemies
Unlike other birds, the Lesser Flamingos neither have a pointed beak (the beak could no longer be used as a weapon with the development of the filter apparatus) nor sharp claws with which they could defend themselves against potential attackers. The physical strength of Lesser Flamingos is below average for their size, which makes Lesser Flamingos ideal prey for various African predators due to the relatively easy way to beat them and the rather high meat yield. However, the majority of these predators eat the carrion that the actual flamingo hunters leave behind: the fish eagles ( Haliaeetus vocifer ). Other possible predators, jackals , lions and the like, cannot get close to the Lesser Flamingos, as they do not have the opportunity to fight their way through the caustic water of the soda lakes . Especially where the flamingos would be easily attacked, in their breeding lake , wading through to the islands with the colonies is impossible, as the water at this lake is particularly corrosive. The fish eagle, however, can ambush the Lesser Flamingos from trees on the bank and kill a Lesser Flamingo with a surprise attack. The Lesser Flamingo, usually a young animal from a manger, is grabbed by the strong claws of the fish eagle and carried to the trees on the bank. If the Lesser Flamingo is not yet dead, it will be killed now. The remains of the Lesser Flamingos are eaten by various scavengers such as vultures , jackals and hyenas .
Lesser Flamingo Research
In the past almost nothing was known about the migration behavior and breeding areas of the Lesser Flamingos. Leslie H. Brown , a Scotsman living in Kenya , began to study this topic about 60 years ago . He looked for the breeding areas of the Lesser Flamingos at the inhospitable, large Natron Lake on the edge of the highlands of Ngorongoro . He asked the Maasai what they knew about the Lesser Flamingo. They said the flamingo chicks spring from the water of the lake. But in 1954 he rented a plane and flew over Lake Natron. After 10 years of work, he finally discovered a breeding colony of 150,000 breeding pairs by means of the plane. This was the first time that a brood of Lesser Lesser Flamingos was sighted, one of the greatest ornithological discoveries when you consider that at the time, in the large collection of animals and plants from colonial areas of the London Zoological Museum, not a single non-fledgling Lesser Flamingo or Lesser Flamingo egg was included. Finally, Leslie Brown also wanted to visit the breeding colony on foot, but this ended fatally due to the high temperatures and the caustic soda water and mud of Lake Natron, which had to be waded for 8 kilometers. Despite severe injuries and wounds, Leslie Brown survived. To this day he is considered one of the most important Lesser Flamingo researchers. But despite his discoveries, many other sectors, especially migration behavior, have not yet been adequately researched.
Lesser Flamingos and Man
Hazard and protection
Stocks
Due to the size of the Lesser Flamingo population, only estimates can be made, one estimate dates the Lesser Flamingo population to 2,220,000-3,240,000 specimens with around 650,000 animals in Asia, another estimate speaks of 4,000,000-6,000,000 animals.
Threat and protection
Although Lesser Flamingos have a large population of 2 to 6 million animals and are "only" recorded as NT (" Near threatened ") in the IUCN Redlist , this species is to be regarded as endangered, because Lesser Flamingos are regionally strong - on a few salt lakes - limited: therefore a drought can destroy a large part of the Lesser Flamingo population. The future of the Lesser Flamingo's habitat is also uncertain. Lately, the population of the Lesser Flamingos in the two key lakes in East Africa, Lake Nakuru and Lake Bogoria , has been negatively affected, presumably by poisoning as a result of heavy metal contamination. The IUCN cites loss of habitat , water pollution and collisions with electrical lines as further reasons for the endangerment of the species . In addition, there are fears about a lack of food at Lake Bogoria.
A disaster for the Lesser Flamingos with an exemplary protection campaign occurred in 1962 when Lake Natron, the main breeding area of the Lesser Flamingos, overran its banks. The flamingos therefore bred on Lake Magada , where they have never been seen breeding before. However, the salt concentration in Lake Magadi was significantly higher than in Lake Natron and salt lumps formed on the feet of the young flamingos, which led to the young animals stumbling into the salt lake in large numbers. The feathers were soaked in the brine, which inevitably led to the death of the young. A zoologist and wildlife filmmaker from Great Britain, Alan Root, started with many helpers, especially with Kenyan school classes, as part of a rescue operation with hammers to break up the lumps of salt on the legs of the chicks. About 27,000 rescued chicks were the result. But it wasn't until the flamingo colony was shooed into the southern part of the lake, where the salinity was lower, that the situation relaxed. As a result of these efforts, 400,000 chicks fledged. There were also other events that killed many flamingos. For example, in 1997, shortly after the chicks hatched, the breeding colony in Lake Natron was caught by a heat wave. The water sank and the rest became highly concentrated brine. Several chicks were also killed in this event.
Cultural references
Unlike many other African animals, the Lesser Flamingos are not anchored in the culture and myths of ancient African cultures. However, the Lesser Flamingos did not go unnoticed, the Maasai explained their reproduction as follows: Since they could not see the breeding colonies because they are located on inaccessible islands in soda lakes , they explained the preservation of the Lesser Flamingo population by saying that they would rise from the water of soda lakes. And it certainly served the ancient peoples as a source of food, albeit rarely.
Lesser Flamingos and today's humans
Today Lesser Flamingos are not hunted, however human pollution is one reason for the decline in the Lesser Flamingo population. Lesser flamingos are a tourist attraction, albeit rare, due to their blaze of color and the large number of specimens. In Angola , postage stamps with the Lesser Flamingo motifs were made. In Germany, Lesser Flamingos are kept in 22 zoos and animal parks. However, only three have so far been successful in breeding.
Naming
The names in four languages: German, Dutch, English, French are lesser flamingo , small flamingo , Lesser Flamingo and nain Flamant . They all have the same origin and target the size of the Lesser Flamingo. The English word Lesser Flamingo can be translated as "small flamingo", "little flamingo". The French name Flamant nain roughly means "Lesser Flamingo", "Dwarf Flamingo", "Dwarf Flamingo" or "Dwarf Flamingo".
The scientific name of the Lesser Flamingo, Phoeniconaias minor , also aims at the short stature of the Lesser Flamingo. Sometimes the Lesser Flamingo is also assigned to the genus Phoenicopterus .
literature
- Robert Böttger, Dr. Heinz Gläsgen, Jens-Uwe Heins, Kurt Möbus, Ulrich Nebelsiek, Hans Oberländer, Udo Pini, Monika Rößiger, Claus M. Schmidt, Holger Schulz, Herman Sülberg and Beatrix Stoepel: Expeditions into the animal kingdom. HVK (?), ISBN 3-576-11062-3 .
- David Burnie: Animals. Dorling Kindersley, ISBN 3-8310-0202-9 .
- Dominic Couzens : Rare Birds - Survivors, Evolution Losers and the Lost. Haupt Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 9783258076294 .
- Josep del Hoyo et al .: Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Lynx Edicions, 1992, ISBN 84-87334-10-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e IUCN
- ↑ Steve Boyes: Message From a 50-Year-Old Flamingo. National Geographic Expeditions in Explorers Journal , 2013. ( Online )
- ↑ a b J. del Hoyo, P. Boesman, EFJ Garcia, GM Kirwan: Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor). 2017 In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, DA & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ( Online )
- ↑ a b Nik Borrow, Ron Demey: Birds of Senegal and The Gambia. Christopher Helm Publishers, 2012, ISBN 978140813469-6 , p. 56.
- ↑ Denis L. Fox, V. Elliott Smith, Arthur A. Wolfson: Carotenoid selectivity in blood and feathers of lesser (African), Chilean and greater (European) flamingos. In: Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology , Vol. 23, No. 1, 1967, pp. 225-232.
- ↑ a b c World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS): Phoeniconaias minor (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1798) Phoeniconaias minor (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1798) ( Online )
- ↑ Couzon, p. 121.
- ^ Couzon, pp. 120-121.
- ↑ a b Robert Böttger, Heinz Gläsgen, Jens-Uwe Heins, Kurt Möbus, Ulrich Nebelsiek, Hans Oberländer, Udo Pini, Monika Rößiger, Claus M. Schmidt, Holger Schulz, Herman Sülberg, Beatrix Stoepel: Expeditions into the animal kingdom , ISBN 3- 576-11062-3 .
- ↑ From: http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22697369 ;
- ↑ Der Sonntag (Karlsruhe), April 12, 2020, p. 2.
- ↑ Der Sonntag (Karlsruhe), April 12, 2020, p. 2.
Web links
Wikinews: Bird Classification Confusion - Message- Lesser flamingo page by Markus Kappeler
- Profile of the Lesser Flamingo
- Phoeniconaias minor in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on January 1 of 2009.