Study reveals flamingos spend time with others whose personality is similar to their own.

The University of Exeter and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) have published a new study that shows flamingos tend to spend time with individuals within their flock that share personality traits similar to their own.

For the study, separately housed flocks of captive Caribbean and Chilean flamingos were observed to explore the impact of personality traits on social dynamics.

Flamingos’ personality traits were assessed by measuring consistent individual differences, such as aggressiveness, submissiveness and willingness to explore.

Results for both species showed that birds of a certain personality type tended to spend time with others whose personality was similar to their own, for example, submissive birds tended to spend time with other submissive individuals, while confident birds tended to spend time with other confident individuals.

Co-author Fionnuala McCully said: “Like humans, flamingos appear to carve out different roles in society based on their personality.

“For example, we observed groups of aggressive birds which attempt to dominate rivals and tend to get in more fights.

“Meanwhile, the role of submissive birds may be more complex than simply being lower down the pecking order – they may be using a different approach to get what they need.

“The various different personality groups provide social help to their members, for example by supporting each other in the many squabbles that take place in flamingo flocks.”

With regard to the wider relationship between personality and social role within the overall group, results differed for the two species. Caribbean flamingos that displayed a certain personality trait had a distinct role within the flock, but this was not found in the Chilean group. The researchers did not determine the reason for this.

Co-author Dr Paul Rose said: “Our findings need further investigation, both to help us understand the evolution of social behaviour and to improve the welfare of zoo animals.

“But it is clear from this research that a flamingo’s social life is much more complicated than we first realised.”

The study, 'Individual personality predicts social network assemblages in a colonial bird’ has been published in Scientific Reports.