Size The greater flamingo is the tallest flamingo, standing 20 to 150 cm (47-59 in.) and weighing up to kg lbs.). Males reach full size between one-and-a-half and two years. Male flamingos are slightly larger than females

Head

Eyes

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  The eyes are located on either side of the head.
  
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  Flamingo chicks have gray eyes for approximately the first year of life. Adult flamingos have yellow eyes.
  

Bill

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  An adult flamingo's bill is black, pinkish, or cream-colored. Coloration varies according to species.
  

Flamingos filter-feed on brine shrimp and blue-green algae as well as insect larvae, small insects, mollusks and crustaceans making them omnivores. Their bills are specially adapted to separate mud and silt from the food they eat, and are uniquely used upside-down. The filtering of food items is assisted by hairy structures called lamellae, which line the mandibles, and the large, rough-surfaced tongue. The pink or reddish color of flamingos comes from carotenoids in their diet of animal and plant plankton. American flamingos are a brighter red color because of the beta carotene availability in their food while the lesser flamingos are a paler pink due to ingesting a smaller amount of this pigment. These carotenoids are broken down into pigments by liver enzymes.^[27] The source of this varies by species, and affects the color saturation. Flamingos whose sole diet is blue-green algae are darker than those that get it second-hand by eating animals that have digested blue-green algae).^[28]

Predators

Most flamingo predators are other species of birds.

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  The lesser flamingo's eggs and chicks are preyed upon by several birds.
  
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    The lappet-faced and white-headed vultures feed on eggs, young flamingos, and dead flamingos.
    
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    The Egyptian vulture feeds mostly on flamingo eggs. This bird has also been observed dropping and destroying eggs that it does not eat.
    
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    The Marabou stork and tawny eagle prey on flamingo eggs and chicks.
    
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    The black kite, a scavenger, feeds on flamingo carcasses left behind by other birds and land animals.
    
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  The greater flamingo's eggs and chicks are prey for the Marabou stork.
  

Remote breeding grounds make it difficult for terrestrial predators to feed regularly on flamingos. Land predators will, however, enter the flamingo breeding grounds when water levels are low. These predators vary according to the species of flamingo and environment in which the flamingo lives.

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  The lesser flamingo is preyed upon by lions, leopards, cheetahs, and jackals. Pythons have also been known to attack flamingos.
  
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  The Andean flamingo is preyed upon by the Andean fox and Geoffrey’s cat.
  
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  In Africa, hyenas will enter a flamingo's environment when the ground is dry and can hold the animals' weight. Hyenas cause more panic among the birds than actual mortalities.
  
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  Records indicate that bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, minks, and dogs have killed flamingos in zoological environments.
  
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  On Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas feral pigs prey on flamingos.
  

About 5% of the flamingos living at Lake Magadi in Africa die of predation.