Flamingos are tall, mostly pink birds
with long legs. A flamingo often stands
with its long, thin neck curved into an S
shape. Flamingos fly and feed in large
flocks of hundreds to even millions of
birds.
Like storks, herons, and ibises, flamingos
are wading birds. This means that they
feed while standing or walking in shallow
water. Flamingos live in warm
regions near lakes and bodies of water
called lagoons.
There are five species, or types, of flamingo.
The most common type is the
lesser flamingo. It is found mainly in
eastern and southern Africa and India.
Other types of flamingo come from
Central and South America, Caribbean
islands, southern Europe, Africa, the
Middle East, and southern Asia.
A flamingo has webbed feet, a slender
body, large wings, and a short tail. Its
head is small, and its bill curves
downward. It stands between about 3
feet (almost 1 meter) and 5 feet (1.5
meters) tall.
Flamingos eat tiny living things such as
algae and small animals such as shrimp,
snails, crabs, and mollusks. A flamingo
gets its food by plunging its head down
into shallow water or mud. It twists its
head upside down and sucks water into
its bill. The bill has a series of hairlike
plates inside that act as a filter. The bird
uses its bill to strain food from the
water.
#More to explore
Bird • Heron • Ibis • Stork
Flathead
The Native Americans known as the
Flatheads traditionally lived in what are
now western Montana and eastern
An illustration shows many flags on a ship
from Venice, Italy, in the year 1298.
Flamingos are known for their pink color
and curved necks.
When first
hatched, a
flamingo has
white and
gray feathers.
Its color
changes to
pink because
of the food it
eats.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Flathead 31
Idaho. They called themselves the Salish.
This name is now used for a group of
tribes that speak similar languages. Outsiders
called them Flatheads even though
they did not flatten the foreheads of
their babies with boards, as some related
tribes did.
The Flatheads got most of their food by
hunting and fishing. By the early 1700s
they obtained horses. They then traveled
long distances on horseback looking for
bison (buffalo).
Flathead families lived in long houses or
tepees. They made their long houses by
covering wooden poles with bark or
woven mats. They covered their tepees
with grass, bark, or earth.
In the 1700s many Flatheads died of
smallpox, a disease that European
explorers passed on to the tribe. Many
other Flatheads were killed in wars with
other tribes. In 1855 the U.S. government
forced the surviving Flatheads to
move to two small reservations. Later
the tribe was forced to give up one reservation.
This left them with only the
Flathead Indian Reservation near Missoula,
Montana. Today they share its
land with several related tribes. At the
end of the 20th century there were
about 3,500 Flatheads.
#More to explore
Native Americans • Smallpox
Flea
Fleas are insects that live as parasites on
birds and mammals, including humans.
Like other parasites, fleas depend on the
animal they live on for food. Fleas bite
the animal to feed on its blood. They
can spread diseases by biting an infected
animal and then biting a healthy animal.
Fleas live throughout the world, in
polar, mild, and tropical regions. There
are about 1,600 species, or kinds, of flea.
Fleas are tiny. The largest are only about
0.4 inch (1 centimeter) long. Fleas have
a thin, flattened body that is dark reddish
brown. They use their long, sharp
beak to pierce an animal’s skin and suck
its blood. Fleas do not have wings, but
they have strong legs and are excellent
jumpers.
Charlot was a great chief of the Flatheads
in the 1800s.
A flea settles into the fur of a dog.
32 Flea BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
A flea has four stages of life: egg, larva,
pupa, and adult. A female flea can lay
more than 20 eggs every day. An egg
develops into a larva, which looks like a
legless caterpillar. The larva molts (sheds
its outside covering) two or three times.
Then it spins a cocoon to begin the
pupa stage. The pupa develops into an
adult a few days or months later,
depending on the species. Adult fleas
live for a few weeks to about a year.
#More to explore
Insect • Parasite
Flood
When water overflows onto dry land, a
flood takes place. Floods have always
been a part of life on Earth. Almost
every culture has a legend about a great
flood. Since ancient times people have
built their cities along rivers because
they use the water for drinking and for
farming. River floods therefore affect
many people. In some places people
have built dams or levees to protect
lands from river flooding.
Floods can be dangerous and destructive.
However, floods are not always bad.
When muddy floodwaters go down, they
sometimes leave a layer of rich, moist
soil. People in ancient Egypt depended
on the flooding of the Nile River every
year to help them grow their crops.
Causes
Most often flooding is caused by heavy
rains over a long period of time. After a
lot of rain, the ground becomes full of
water, and new rainwater runs off, or
flows downhill. That runoff goes directly
into streams and rivers. In springtime
