Flamingos are a kind of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae.
The name “Flamingo” arises from Spanish or Portuguese Flamengo, “flame-colored,” which also means “blood red-feathered.”
Flamingos stand on one leg, with the other being pushed below the body. The reason for this behavior is not entirely understood. One theory is that standing on one leg allows the Flamingos to maintain more body heat, given that they use a notable amount of time wading in cold water.[20] However, the behavior also occurs in warm water and is also observed in birds that do not normally stand in water. A new theory is that standing on one leg reduces the energy expense for creating muscular effort to balance and stand on one leg. A study on bodies revealed that the one-legged pose could be kept without any muscle activity while living flamingos show substantially less body sway in a mysterious one-legged posture.
Let’s jump to the topic of the article – why are Flamingos Pink?
For flamingos, the expression “You are what you eat” holds more precision than it might for us. The brilliant pink color of flamingos originates from beta carotene, a beautiful red-orange pigment that’s observed in high numbers within the larvae, algae, and brine shrimp that flamingos usually eat in their wetland habitat. In the digestive system, the digestive enzymes break down carotenoids into pigments swallowed by fats in the liver and deposited, for flamingos, in the skin and feathers. To actually color the natural attributes, carotenoids must be ingested in substantial amounts. Because the flamingo diet is almost completely carotenoid-filled delicacies, the birds have no difficulty coloring themselves. On the other hand, a human would need to hog quite a lot of carrots (a food heavy in carotenoids, which also gives the thing its name) to turn an orange shade.
There are four distinct flamingos species, all of which are, at present, native to South America. However, these distinct species and even smaller flamingos populations live in different regions of the continent. Because of this difference in habitat, flamingo colors differ based on their neighborhood and the food that they surround themselves with. Some flamingos are brighter or darker shades of pink; some contain tints of red and orange, and others are bright white.
Flamingos whose diet is blue-green algae (in large quantities) are comparatively darker than those that get it merely second-hand by eating creatures that have digested these blue-green algae.
