Adelaide Zoo flamingoes Chile and Greater – who became gay icons of the Feast Festival – have been immortalised and are on display

They may have died years ago, but the Zoo’s beloved flamingoes, who became icons of Adelaide’s Feast Festival, have been resurrected and immortalised.

Adelaide Zoo’s fabulous late flamingoes Chile and Greater have come out of the freezer to put on a show for the Feast Festival.

It was long assumed both birds were male, so they became gay icons.

SA Museum 3D design specialist Jo Bain, with zookeeper Emma Crittle, who used to look after the flamingoes. Picture: Mark Brake

Greater survived a brutal attack by teenagers in 2008 before dying at the ripe old age of 83 in 2014. The more diminutive Chile was euthanased in 2018, aged in her 60s. Her true gender was discovered in an autopsy.

That same year, the LGBTIQ+ arts and cultural event Feast adopted two neon flamingoes as its logo.

SA Museum 3D design specialist Jo Bain performed the resurrection using a combination of taxidermy and modelling techniques.

Chile the Chilean Flamingo at Adelaide Zoo. Picture: Adrian Mann / Zoos SA

Greater the flamingo about a week before he died. Picture: Tabatha Griffin

“It’s their feathers, their skin – it’s just not their skull and not their legs,” he said.

Zookeeper Emma Crittle shed a few tears of joy when she laid eyes on her old friends. “Getting to see them again was really lovely,” she said. “It’s really special.”

Feast Festival general manger Helen Sheldon said she was pleased the “beautiful birds” could be admired in their new home at the SA Museum.

“The flamingo was chosen as our festival’s logo because, who doesn’t love a flamingo?” she said. “Plus they are a very modern feathered creature; able to have meaningful same-sex relationships from travelling and living to raising their young together.”

The duo will make their debut on Friday at the museum’s after-hours Feast event, Night Lab: Birds of a Feather, Frock Together.

The general public can then see them on permanent display from Saturday.

The birds have their own glass case in the Mammals Gallery, in the spot where Nathan the Lion with the twitchy tail was.