Flamingos are well known for their gregarious habits and aggregations in large flocks, but evaluation of the mechanisms behind social grouping remain poorly understood. A new five-year study shows that, despite being highly social as part of their flocks, flamingos consistently spend time with specific close friends; they also avoid certain individuals, suggesting some flamingos just don’t get on.
Flamingo friends. Image credit: Paul Rose / WWT Slimbridge.
“Flamingos have long lives — and our study shows their friendships are stable over a period of years,” said lead author Dr. Paul Rose, a researcher in the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at the University of Exeter.
“It seems that — like humans — flamingos form social bonds for a variety of reasons, and the fact they’re so long-lasting suggests they are important for survival in the wild.”
Dr. Rose and his colleague, University of Exeter’s Professor Darren Croft, examined four flamingo species at WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre.
They found social bonds including ‘married’ couples, same-sex friendships and even groups of three and four close friends.
“Our results indicate that flamingo societies are complex. They are formed of long-standing friendships rather than loose, random connections,” Dr. Rose said.
“Flamingos don’t simply find a mate and spend their time with that individual.”
“Some mating couples spend much of their time together, but lots of other social bonds also exist.”
“We see pairs of males or females choosing to ‘hang out,’ we see trios and quartets that are regularly together.”
The researchers examined flocks of Caribbean, Chilean, Andean and Lesser flamingos.
The flocks varied in size from just over 20 to more than 140, and the findings suggest larger flocks contained the highest level of social interactions.
“The simple lesson of this is that captive flamingo flocks should contain as many birds as reasonably possible,” Dr. Rose said.
The team found that seasons affected social interactions, with more bonds forming in spring and summer — the breeding season.
In three of the four flocks, the authors also looked at condition of the birds — measured by the health of their feet — to see if there were links between social lives and health.
“No link was found. This could mean that socializing is so important to flamingos that they continue to do it even if they are not feeling at their best,” Dr. Rose said.
According to the team, the findings could help in the management of captive flamingos.
“When moving birds from one zoo to another, we should be careful not to separate flamingos that are closely bonded to each other,” Dr. Rose said.
The results were published in the journal Behavioural Processes.
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Paul E. Rose & Darren P. Croft. 2020. Evaluating the social networks of four flocks of captive flamingos over a five-year period: Temporal, environmental, group and health influences on assortment. Behavioural Processes 175: 104118; doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2020.104118
