It is a cultural icon for the U.S. state of Florida, where it was formerly abundant in the southernmost regions, although it was largely extirpated by 1900 and is now only an uncommon visitor with a few small, potential resident populations.

The American flamingo was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the current binomial name Phoenicopterus ruber.

[3] Linnaeus cited earlier authors including the English naturalist Mark Catesby who in 1729–1731 had described and illustrated the flamingo found on the Bahamas islands.

Its preferred habitats are similar to those of its relatives: saline lagoons, mudflats, and shallow, brackish coastal or inland lakes.

Large flocks of flamingos reaching up to a thousand individuals (with one potential sighting of up to 2,500 individuals) were sighted throughout the 19th century by naturalists such as Audubon and Wurdemann, although such spectacles were restricted to a small portion of southern and western Florida, at sites including Marco Island, Cape Sable and the Florida Keys.

[10][16][17] This belief persisted into the 21st century even as flamingo sightings started to become more and more frequent, although at least one bird banded as a chick in the Yucatán Peninsula was recorded in 2012 in Everglades National Park.

[18][19] A 2018 study confirmed the native status of flamingos in Florida and called for their federal protection as a threatened species, which had been debated by agencies during the prior decades.

Like all flamingos, it lays a single chalky-white egg on a mud mound, between May and August; incubation until hatching takes from 28 to 32 days; both parents brood their young.

The American flamingo is usually monogamous when selecting a nest site, and incubating and raising young; however, extra-pair copulations are frequent.While males usually initiate courtship, females control the process.

How long a relationship lasts is affected by many factors, including addition and removal of adults, maturation of juveniles, and occurrence of trios and quartets.

It has evolved long legs and large webbed feet to wade and stir up the bottom of the water bed to bring up their food source to then be retrieved.

The American flamingo's diet consists of small crustaceans (Artemia, Gammarus, Dotilla, and copepods), molluscs (Cerithidea, Cerithium, Paludestrina, Neritina, Gemma, and Macoma), some worms (Nereis), nematodes, insects (water beetles or ants) and their larvae (Ephydra, Chironomus, Thinophilus, Sigaria, and Micronecta), small fish (Cyprinodon), widgeon grass, seeds (Ruppia, Scirpus, Juncus, and Cyperus), algae, diatoms, and decaying leaves.

The role of osmoregulation—the maintenance of a precise balance of solute and water concentrations within the body—is performed by a number of bodily functions working together.

Although birds' kidneys tend to be larger in size, they are inefficient in producing concentrated urine that is significantly hyperosmotic to their blood plasma.

[33] Flamingos, like many other marine birds, have a high saline intake, yet even the glomular filtration rate (GFR) remains unchanged.

[36] Sodium-Potassium ATPase works with a Sodium-Chloride cotransporter (also known as the NKCC), and a basal potassium channel to secrete salt (NaCl) into secretory tubes.

Due to this need for increased cardiac output, the avian heart tends to be larger in relation to body mass than what is seen in most mammals.

The sinoatrial node uses calcium to cause a depolarizing signal transduction pathway from the atrium through right and left atrioventricular bundle which communicates contraction to the ventricles.

Similar to the atrium, the arteries are composed of thick elastic muscles to withstand the pressure of the ventricular constriction, and become more rigid as they move away from the heart.

Blood moves through the arteries, which undergo vasoconstriction, and into arterioles which act as a transportation system to distribute primarily oxygen as well as nutrients to all tissues of the body.

[39] As the arterioles move away from the heart and into individual organs and tissues they are further divided to increase surface area and slow blood flow.

[39] Once the blood reaches the heart it moves first into the right atrium, then the left ventricle to be pumped through the lungs for further gas exchange of carbon dioxide waste for oxygen.

[41] The American flamingo's four-chambered heart is myogenic, meaning that all the muscle cells and fibers have the ability to contract rhythmically.

Plasma chemistry remains relatively stable with age but lower values of protein content, uric acid, cholesterol, triglycerides, and phospholipids were seen in free living flamingos.

Relatively few studies have focused on the flamingo respiratory system, however little to no divergences from the standard avian anatomical design have occurred in their evolutionary history.

It has been seen that the medulla, hypothalamus and mid-brain are involved in the control of panting, as well through the Hering-Breuer reflex that uses stretch receptors in the lungs, and the vagus nerve.

[45] This effect of the panting is accelerated by a process called gular fluttering;[46] rapid flapping of membranes in the throat which is synchronized with the movements of the thorax.

The flamingo uses a "flushout" pattern of ventilation where deeper breaths are essentially mixed in with shallow panting to flush out carbon dioxide and avoid alkalosis.

Using a system of countercurrent blood flow, heat is efficiently recycled through the body rather than being lost through extremities such as the legs and feet.Living in the equatorial region of the world, the American flamingo has little variation in seasonal temperature changes.

While the purpose of this iconic posture remains ultimately unanswered, strong evidence supports its function in regulating body temperature.