zoocreation


Flamingos
After the flood



Chad Arment (2024)





Lesser flamingos, Phoeniconaias minor, in flight in Tanzania (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Diana Robinson)



Flamingos are large, rosy-pink, long-legged wading birds with specialized beaks adapted for filter-feeding on small benthic invertebrates, microorganisms, and plant seeds. The beaks are enlarged and curved, allowing greater water intake for suction filtration. Both upper and lower mandibles have rows of bristly lamellae that mesh together as the beak closes. Flamingos extend their head upside down into the water, searching for food. Opening the beak to a slight gape allows the water to enter, while lamellae work as excluders to prevent coarser sand and other large debris. Suspended food items are then sieved out as the flamingo’s large tongue pushes the water back out through the beak’s meshed lamellae. Bristles on the tongue pointing towards the throat aid in transporting the food back for swallowing (Jenkins 1957; Zweers et al. 1995). Bill and lamellae size differ by flamingo species, allowing them to use different food sources even in sympatric populations. When forced to migrate to new locations where food sources may vary, flamingos are able to adapt and mechanically adjust the porosity of their lamellar sieves (Mascitti and Kravetz 2002).


Flamingos are rosy-pink as adults, with the coloration acquired through different carotenoid pigments from their diet. Flamingo physiology has adapted to specifically store light-stable carotenoids to help prevent (or at least delay) fading under bright sunlight, while high-altitude species store higher levels of carotenoids (Amat and Rendón 2017). Flamingos increase the reddish appearance of their feathers by applying pigmented uropygial secretions. There is likely a signaling function in flamingo coloration, denoting health and fitness (nutritional condition). Fading flamingos may require regular plumage ‘cosmetics’ application (Chiale et al. 2021).


There are six flamingo species, in three genera, living today:

Phoenicopterus chilensis, Chilean flamingo (New World)

Phoenicopterus roseus, Greater flamingo (Old World)

Phoenicopterus ruber, American flamingo (New World)

Phoeniconaias minor, Lesser flamingo (Old World)

Phoenicoparrus andinus, Andean flamingo (New World)

Phoenicoparrus jamesi, James’s flamingo (New World)


Known intergeneric crosses include Phoenicopterus x Phoeniconaias and Phoenicopterus x Phoenicoparrus (McCarthy 2006), which indicates all living flamingos would be in the same Created Kind, as Lightner (2013) suggested.





American flamingo, Phoenicopterus ruber, in flight (CC BY-SA 2.0 Fernando Flores)





Young flamingos are dark in coloration (CC BY 2.0 Zoltán Vörös)



What makes up the Flamingo kind?



Taking a bird’s-eye view, at a minimum the flamingo kind would include the true flamingos (Family Phoenicopteridae) and the extinct Family Palaelodidae. It probably includes the broader Phoenicopteriformes, which adds a few extinct stem genera. Due to morphological and molecular data, including numerous synapomorphies, some secular biologists suggest that the Phoenicopteriformes are most closely related to the grebes (Podicipediformes), which are smaller diving birds with much shorter, thinner beaks (Mayr 2004; Manegold 2006). There is even a parasitic tapeworm family, the Amabiliidae, which is found exclusively in flamingos and grebes (Mayr 2004). A fossil floating twig-nest, similar to those made by modern grebes, was found in a Miocene lacustrine limestone bed in Spain, carrying eggs with distinctly flamingo microcharacteristics (Grellet-Tinner et al. 2012).


The extinct Palaelodidae do show morphological similarities to both true flamingos (derived skull traits such as “deep mandibular rami”) and grebes (short, straight beaks and leg bones with traits similar to those seen in foot-propelled diving birds) (Mayr 2005; Mayr 2006).


From a creation perspective, the flamingos + grebes clade (Mirandornithes) likely makes up a single Created Kind, but we cannot yet discount that they may be separate baraminic lineages. If they are a single kind, then it seems likely that the Ark Kind was a smaller, aquatic bird that used its hind limbs for propulsion, with some descendants diverging into a shallow-water filter-feeder at a later time. Mayr (2004) notes that the earliest clear fossils of grebes from Miocene deposits are “very similar to modern Podicipedidae,” so phylogenetic relationships must rely on other mirandornithines.



Australasian crested grebe





(Bernard Spragg)



lesser flamingo





Phoeniconaias minor

(CC BY-NC 2.0 Hari K Patibanda)



james's flamingos





Phoenicoparrus jamesi

(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Pedro Szekely)



Andean flamingos





Phoenicoparrus andinus

(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Nick Athanas)



Greater Flamingo





Phoenicopterus roseus

(CC BY 2.0 Ron Knight)



Chilean flamingo





Phoenicopterus chilensis

(Bernard Spragg)



Lesser flamingo





Phoeniconaias minor

(CC BY-SA 3.0 Antoine Taveneaux)



Fossil History



One early fossil of interest is the Eocene Juncitarsus, from North America and Europe (Mayr 2005). Morphological traits suggest this long-legged wading bird may have been a sister taxon to the Mirandornithes as a whole, as it is less derived than either the flamingos or grebes (Mayr 2014). Also known from Eocene deposits in Mongolia is an indeterminate bird within the mirandornithines (Hood et al. 2019), suggesting a very early post-Flood derivation if they were related to Juncitarsus. There is debate whether only one pair of each unclean bird kind (and seven pairs of each clean bird kind) or seven pairs for each bird kind were on the Ark, which opens up a few possibilities as to the variety and relationships of species carried on the Ark. It would be difficult to make any firm conclusions without a better understanding of the biblical text.


The Family Palaelodidae appears primarily in the Oligocene and Miocene of Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australasia (Worthy et al. 2010; Zelenkov 2013). One species of Palaelodus has been found in Pleistocene Australian deposits (Worthy et al. 2010). This family shares derived traits with the true flamingos that are not found in the grebes or in Juncitarsus (Mayr 2004; Mayr 2014). Palaelodids were long-legged wading birds, though not as tall as modern flamingos, and were somewhat crane-like. They are found in lacustrine sediment deposits (Mayr 2015). Palaelodus had salt glands, suggesting it foraged in saline water (Worthy et al. 2010). While Palaelodus had deep mandibles, it does not appear to have been capable of filter-feeding. Its straight beak also suggests that it targeted food items rather than broadly sifted for them (Mayr 2015).


The first fossil flamingo to demonstrate a flamingo-like skull and bill was Harrisonavis from Oligocene-Miocene deposits. Harrisonavis demonstrated fewer derived filter-feeding traits than modern flamingos, such as “a straighter bill with less surface area for filtration lamellae” (Torres et al. 2015). It is clear that the modern flamingo’s bill, with its expanded and deepening mandibles, and development of a lamellar mesh for filter-feeding, followed a pathway of adaptation by stages from a straight-billed, non-filter-feeding Ark ancestor. Even the modern flamingo genera demonstrate step-wise adaptations in bill morphology, with Phoenicoparrus’ bill being more exaggerated in curve than the bill of Phoenicopterus, likely due to specialized feeding adaptations (Torres et al. 2015).


Several different flamingo genera, now extinct, have been described from Oligocene to Pliocene deposits. Leakeyornis was a smaller flamingo from Miocene Kenya (Rich and Walker 1983; Dyke and Walker 2008). Phoeniconotius was an Oligocene-Miocene Australian flamingo, much more robust than modern species (Rich and Walker 1983). Xenorhynchopsis is known from Pliocene and Pleistocene Australia (Rich et al. 1987).



Juncitarsus merkeli





Museo di Storia Naturale, Milano

(CC BY-SA 3.0 Ghedoghedo)



Palaelodus ambiguous





Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris

(CC BY-SA 4.0 Ghedoghedo)



Harrisonavis croizeti





Musee des Confluences

(CC BY-SA 4.0 Ghedoghedo)



With regard to modern flamingos, Phoenicopterus first appears in Miocene deposits (McDonald and Steadman 2023). The genus had a more expansive range than its current territory, including western North America, Europe, and Australia. Phoenicopterus and other flamingos were found in Australia up into the Pleistocene before disappearing from that continent (Miller 1963; Rich et al. 1987). Phoeniconaias also first appears in the Miocene, represented by P. siamensis in Thailand (Cheneval et al. 1991), and that genus also shows up in Pleistocene Australia (Miller 1963). Phoenicoparrus fossils appear to be lacking, however phylogenetic analysis suggests that it forms one of two extant flamingo clades, along with Phoeniconaias (Frias-Soler et al. 2022). The three living species of Phoenicopterus make up the other clade.


Within a Lower Cenozoic Flood Boundary model, the flamingo kind’s expansion and diversification around the world is fairly straight-forward. The rosy-pink flamingo morphotype we know so well today was unlikely to have been on the Ark, but was rather a post-Flood adaptation to an under-represented ecological niche in wading bird communities. The physical augmentation and mechanical specialization seen in a modern flamingo’s beak is testimony to the Creator’s integration of adaptive morphospace within Created Kinds.



Flamingo skull

(CC BY-SA 2.0 Lukas Large)



The flamingo's spiny tongue

(CC BY-NC 2.0 Derek Bruff)



James's flamingo, Phoenicoparrus jamesi, feeding

(CC BY 3.0 Christian Mehlführer)




A Post-Flood View of the Flamingos





American flamingo​, Phoenicopterus ruber (CC BY 2.0 Robert Claypool)



references



Amat, J. A., and M. A. Rendón. 2017. Flamingo coloration and its significance. In: Anderson, M. J., ed. Flamingos: Behavior, Biology, and Relationship with Humans. Nova Science, New York.


Cheneval, J., et al. 1991. The Miocene avifauna of the Li Mae Long locality, Thailand: Systematics and paleoecology. Journal of Southeast Asian Earth Sciences 6(2): 117-126.


Chiale, M. C., et al. 2021. The color of greater flamingo feathers fades when no cosmetics are applied. Ecology and Evolution 11: 13773-13779.


Frias-Soler, R. C., et al. 2022. Phylogeny of the order Phoenicopteriformes and population genetics of the Caribbean flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber: Aves). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 196: 1485-1504.


Grellet-Tinner, G., et al. 2012. The first occurrence in the fossil record of an aquatic avian twig-nest with Phoenicopteriformes eggs: Evolutionary implications. PLoS ONE 7(10): e46972.


Dyke, G. J., and C. A. Walker. 2008. New records of fossil ‘waterbirds’ from the Miocene of Kenya. American Museum Novitates (3610): 1-12.


Hood, S. C., et al. 2019. New fossil birds from the earliest Eocene of Mongolia. American Museum Novitates (3934): 1-22.


Jenkin, P. M. 1957. The filter-feeding and food of flamingoes (Phoenicopteri). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 240(674): 401-493.


Lightner, J. K. 2013. An initial estimate of avian ark kinds. Answers Research Journal 6: 409-466.


Manegold, A. 2006. Two additional synapomorphies of grebes Podicipedidae and flamingos Phoenicopteridae. Acta Ornithologica 41(1): 79-82.


Mascitti, V., and F. O. Kravetz. 2002. Bill morphology of South American flamingos. The Condor 104: 73-83.


Mayr, G. 2004. Morphological evidence for sister group relationship between flamingos (Aves: Phoenicopteridae) and grebes (Podicipedidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 140: 157-169.


Mayr, G. 2005. The Paleogene fossil record of birds in Europe. Biological Review 80: 515-542.


Mayr, G. 2006. The contribution of fossils to the reconstruction of the higher-level phylogeny of birds. Species, Phylogeny and Evolution 1: 59-64.


Mayr, G. 2014. The Eocene Juncitarsus—its phylogenetic position and significance for the evolution and higher-level affinities of flamingos and grebes. C. R. Palevol. 13: 9-18.


Mayr, G. 2015. Cranial and vertebral morphology of the straight-billed Miocene phoenicopteriform bird Palaelodus and its evolutionary significance. Zoologischer Anzeiger 254: 18-26.


McCarthy, E. M. 2006. Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.


McDonald, H. G., and D. W. Steadman. 2023. Fossil flamingo (Phoenicopteriformes) from the Miocene (Hemingfordian) of southern California, USA. Historical Biology 35(9): 1574-1582.


Miller, A. H. 1963. The fossil flamingos of Australia. The Condor 65: 289-299.


Rich, P. V., and C. A. Walker. 1983. A new genus of Miocene flamingo from East Africa. Ostrich 54(2): 95-104.


Rich, P. V., et al. 1987. The Pliocene and Quaternary flamingoes of Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 25(1): 207-225.


Torres, C. R., et al. 2015. New cranial material of the earliest filter feeding flamingo Harrisonavis croizeti (Aves, Phoenicopteridae) informs the evolution of the highly specialized filter feeding apparatus. Organisms Diversity & Evolution 15: 609-618.


Worthy, T. H., et al. 2010. First record of Palaelodus (Aves: Phoenicopteriformes) from New Zealand. Records of the Australian Museum 62(1): 77-88.


Zelenkov, N. V. 2013. Cenozoic Phoenicopteriform birds from Central Asia. Paleontological Journal 47(11): 1323-1330.


Zweers, G., et al. 1995. Filter feeding in flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber). The Condor 97(2): 297-324.


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