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Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor), family Phoenicopteridae, order Phoenicopteriformes, eastern coast of India

photograph by Rathika Ramasamy

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A Brief History of Flamingos

People wanted it so here it is, a brief rundown of flamingos throughout prehistory, which is essentially a brief summary of extinct flamingo species that I worked on for Wikipedia. Because of this, I'll stick to the two main famillies, the Palaeolodidae ("swimming flamingos") and Phoenicopteridae (true flamingos) and leave aside the misc. early forms we don't know are actually related or not.

Palaelodidae Palaelodids, occasionally referred to as "swimming flamingos" are an interesting and surprisingly long lasting group, containing 3 genera, 10 species and ranging from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene across all continents bar Africa and Antarctica.

The oldest palaelodid is Adelalopus hoogbutseliensis from the Early Oligocene of Belgium. Not much to be said other than that its name is an anagram of Palaelodus.

Palaelodus is the most widespread of the genera in the family, with the type species being Palaelodus ambiguus from the Oligocene and Miocene of Europe. I did actually make a whole post about the genus before here. Anyways, P. ambiguus is the best known species thanks to the ample material collected at Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France. Remains were also found in Germany and maybe Brazil?

Brazil is interesting, because already by the Oligocene palaelodids were nearly cosmopolitan. Two other species, Palaelodus pledgei and Palaelodus wilsoni, have been recovered from the Oligocene to Miocene of Australia, half a world away from P. ambiguus. P. pledgei is the smallest known species of Palaelodus.

During the early Miocene we also get Palaelodus aotearoa, from New Zealand, and from the middle Miocene Palaelodus kurochkini from Mongolia. The later of the two may in fact be its own genus, but for now its deemed Palaelodus.

Generally, Palaelodus is less specialised than flamingos, though living in brackish waters and feeding on small aquatic insects, they didn't yet have the same suffisticated filter feeding bill as todays flamingos. Whats debated is how they moved. Some suggest wading, others diving and again others propose the idea that they may have been swimmers.

There is one more note on this group, which is that there are some remains assigned to P. wilsoni that appear to have been Pleistocene in age? Obviously this would be a massive deal, but it has also been suggested that this could be a new species given the time gap or a whole new genus. Still, palaelodid remains from the Pleistocene are still incredible. Palaelodus by Alphinyx and Tom Simpson

The last member of the Palaelodidae is Megapaloelodus. Yes they misspelled Palaelodus in the genus name. The definition of this form is kinda vague and mostly based on size, which is why there's so many issues around Megapaloelodus goliath. You see it was initially described based on its size, but when larger remains of Megapaloelodus were found it was transferred to that genus. However, all other Megapaloelodus species are from the Americas, so thats kinda odd, although of course not a dealbreaker. Still, future research might change things up here.

While Megapaloelodus goliath was contemporary and found at the same place as Palaelodus ambiguus, all others are found in Miocene to Pliocene deposits of America.

Megapaloelodus connectens is the type species and known from the Miocene of South Dakota and California.

Megapaloelodus peiranoi may be the basalmost species and was discovered in Miocene deposits of Argentina.

Finally, we got Megapaloelodus opsigonus from Oregon and possibly Baja California. As this is the youngest species, from the Pliocene, its name means "born in a later age".

Megapaloelodus by Joschua Knüppe (with Argentavis) and Scott Reid

Which actually wraps up palaelodids. Yeah the majority of studies are focused on palaelodids, no surprise given its the only one with really good remains. But based on said animal, its a fascinating group.

This means we can move on to true flamingos, members of the family Phoenicopteridae. I hope you like that name btw, because goddamn "Phoenico" is an overused prefix for these animals to a ridiculous degree. Even I struggled keeping up.

Just to set the stage, lets establish the modern flamingos, split into two to three genera. There is the Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor), the only extant member of its genus and native to Africa and Asia. There are two species of Phoenicoparrus, the Andean and Jame's flamingos (Phoenicoparrus andinus and Phoenicoparrus jamesi respectively), both endemic to South America. And then there's the three species of Phoenicopterus. The incredibly whidespread Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus), the American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) and the Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis). As if the Greater and American flamingos didn't already have latin names way too similar, they were also synonyms for a while so thats fun when they get brought up in old papers.

Chart of living flamingos by Mr. Gharial

Anyways, lets reset to the Oligocene and do this semi-chronologically as before. And yes, Oligocene. Because contrary to what you might think, palaelodids, as we currently think of them as, aren't the ancestors to flamingos and more a really weird sister group that appeared from the same common ancestor aroundt he same time.

Thankfully, we get to start with something fun and not confusing, Harrisonavis croizeti. Another one I did actually cover in detail on Tumblr right here. The short of it is that Harrisonavis already bears the hallmarks of modern flamingos, possessing that classic curved bill and certainly doing some filter feeding already. And if you paid attention you might recognize where its from. Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France. Yup, this guy coexisted with Palaelodus and Megapaloelodus. Must have been a fascinating place.

Harrisonavis and Palaelodus by Joschua Knüppe

Of course this being a well known form, we gotta follow it up with something bad. Elornis is, simply put, a mess. We aren't even super sure if its a flamingo or not and its history is convoluted. All we can say for sure is that it lived during the late Oligocene in France.

Like palaelodids, true flamingos seem to have dispersed rapidly, as our next entry managed to reach Australia by the late Oligocene. Phoeniconotius eyerensis, I repeat that one, PhoenicoNOTIUS (you see what I mean with things getting confusing?) is a genus from the Lake Eyre Basin of South Australia. It was a comparably robust animal, much more massive than other flamingos and perhaps more of a wader than a swimmer, staying away from deeper waters?

Same time same place we got Phoenicopterus novaehollandiae. PhoenicoPTERUS, as in the same genus as American and Greater flamingos. Now this guy sticks mostly to the same stuff as its relatives, thus differing clearly from Phoeniconotius.

Phoeniconotius (foreground), Phoenicopterus novaehollandiae (?, middle) and palaeolids (background) by Frank Knight, Phoeniconotius by Anne Musser

We can now move into the Miocene. We get a brief break from Phoenico names courtesy of Leakeyornis aethiopicus from Kenya. Tho its not super well preserved, its among the few fossil flamingos with known skull remains, so thats gotta count for something.

Skeletal by me, art by Joschua Knüppe

Also during the Miocene, we get the appearance of the genus Phoeniconaias (PhoenicoNAIAS) thanks to Phoeniconaias siamensis. A small species, only slightly larger than today's Lesser Flamingo, its remains are exclusively known from the Mae Long Reservoir in northern Thailand.

Fossil material of P. siamensis alongside a Lesser Flamingo via เบิร์ดโบราณ - Ancient bird on Facebook

And already we find ourselves in the Pliocene. Oh how time flies. Lets wrap up known fossil species of Phoeniconaias then while we're at it. Phoeniconaias proeses is a species from Australia. Unlike our friend from Thailand, this one is actually smaller than its modern relative. It also coexisted with two other flamingos. Fossils from the region have been assigned to the Greater Flamingo and one other form we'll cover next.

Xenorhynchopsis. Our last truly original name. Xenorhynchopsis minor is the older of the two, Pliocene in age and the species I just alluded to earlier. The genus then went on to continue into the Pleistocene via Xenorhynchopsis tibialis. Neither is especially well known and both had been named by de Vis, who while no doubt an important contributor to Australian paleontology also had plenty of flaws I'll discuss soon with my next post on mekosuchines. Anyways, Xenorhynchopsis has a cool name, a confusing history (they were described as storks) and likely died out when the inland waterways of Australia dried up.

Its all downhill from here folks. It's all PhoenicoPTERUS from now on and none of them are especially good. Lets rewind to the Pliocene to cover them properly.

We got Phoenicopterus floridanus from the early Pliocene of, who guessed it, Florida. It may have also inhabited North Carolina.

Phoenicopterus stocki, or Stock's Flamingo, lived during the middle Pliocene in Mexico. Tho not well described, we got juvenile remains too, young individuals that were not yet capable of flight.

Finally we got two Pleistocene species.

Phoenicopterus minutus from California, specifically Lake Manix. Lake Manix also yielded fossils tentatively assigned to the other Pleistocene fossil species.

Phoenicopterus copei. While fossils of P. minutus are currently exclusive to Lake Manix, P. copei was more widespread, ranging from Mexico in the south to Oregon in the north as well as California in the west and Florida in the east. Where it coexisted with other flamingos, like P. minutus and American flamingos, it would have been the larger species.

And thats it. All the fossil flamingos of the Palaelodidae and Phoenicopteridae. Alas, bird fossils preserve notoriously poorly and though stuff like the ends of tibiatarsi and tarsometatarsi are diagnostic, they aren't super helpful to making them sound interesting to the average joe. So sorry if this whole post is a little dry in spots.