A fraught history for flamingos

In a 1956 research report published by the National Audubon Society in the United States, American ornithologist Robert Porter Allen documented the earliest mentions of the flamingo in human history. Images found on cave walls in Spain, he wrote, might have been created by Neolithic man more than 5,000 years ago. Flamingo species have been found from the Mediterranean to the Andes mountains in Chile, according to the report, which is titled “The Flamingos: Their Life, History and Survival; With Special Reference to the American or West Indian Flamingo.”