Every visitor to the zoo is attracted by the beautiful flamingos (family Phoenicopteridae) – four species of graceful long-legged, long-necked birds. The flamingos still pose a puzzle as regards classification. Like ducks and geese, they shed all their flight feathers together when moulting, they bill is furnished with a little plates on the margins, they are attacked by mallophaga, external parasites also found in the Anseriformes, this being why some systematic class them with water-fowl; others believe them to be an independent order. However they show many resemblances (e.g. in the way they feed their young) to the herons and storks.

The bill is unique, quite unlike that of any other bird. It is fairly high at the base and abruptly bent down in the middle, the mandible (lower jaw) being larger than the maxilla (upper). Whereas in most birds the former is the more movable of the two jaws, in flamingos the opposite is true. The margins of the bill are lined with small plates and the thick tongue has about 20 similar tooth-like projections on either side which serve to sieve water and mud while retaining the food-plankton, small mollusks, crustaceans, algae, protozoans, etc. – as ducks do for example. When feeding, however, the upper jaw is bottom-most, and the lower jaw above it and pumping against it. The small animals caught on the horny lamellae when the water and mud are sieved are scraped off by the projections on the tongue and swallowed. The feed, with webbed anterior toes, trail behind in flight, the necks being held straight out in front. Thought they are not fond of swimming, flamingos sometimes forage for food up to their bellies in water. The rose-tinted plumage slowly becomes pale in captivity, probably due to the dirt or to some deficiency in the diet.

Flamingos prefer salt or brackish waters. They build their nests close together, in shallow water or on muddy shores, of soft mud which soon hardens. These simple, flattened, cone-like structures are used only for one season. In the hollowed out, saucer-like top the female lays one or at most two white eggs which both sexes incubate alternatively, folding their long legs beneath them. The young hatch after 30-40 days, remaining in the nest for four days. They are covered with white down and have a straight bill which starts curving downwards only after the third week. At first, the adults feed the nestlings a protein secretion from the crop, then regurgitated food containing plankton for 14 days, after which the young fend for themselves, forming flocks with those from other nests. Their feathers are an unattractive grey color. When not foraging for food, flamingos generally rest on one leg with the head tucked among the shoulder feathers.