Birds of the same feather group together but, within their flocks, flamingos form smaller cliques of like-minded individuals, a new study suggests.

While previous research showed that flamingos formed friendship groups, the findings of thr study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, indicated that these friendships are partly decided by individuals’ intrinsic traits. 

Researchers at the University of Exeter and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust studied a flock of 147 Caribbean flamingos and a separately housed flock of 115 Chilean flamingos at the WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire between March and July 2014.

Both groups were found to have individuals with varying behavioural traits, and they appeared to use these traits to choose which flamingos they would associate themselves with.

“For example, bolder birds had stronger, more consistent ties with other bold birds, while submissive birds tended to spend their time with fellow submissive flamingos,” said study co-author and animal behavioural scientist Dr Paul Rose, a research associate at WWT and lecturer at the University of Exeter.

In the Caribbean flock, personality was found to have an effect on social roles, with flamingos displaying higher levels of aggressive, exploratory and submissive behaviour having more friends in their clique and forming stronger connections with those friends.

Those flamingos also engaged in more fights and were more willing to provide back-up when their friends were threatened, the researchers observed.