Flamingos are among the most elegant and 'stylish' birds on Earth. Much of their 'style' is due to their bright pink color. We will explain how they acquire it.
According to Science Focus, a person lucky enough to see a flamingo chick may be surprised. The fact is that the plumage of a young flamingo is gray.
The color of flamingos changes as they grow and directly depends on their diet. Since their diet mainly consists of aquatic crustaceans and blue-green algae, flamingos obtain a significant amount of pigments known as carotenoids.
These carotenoids, which, by the way, are the same pigments that turn shrimp pink when cooked, are responsible for the pink color of flamingo feathers. For example, if they start eating only insects or berries, their feathers will turn white or gray again, just like in childhood.
For a similar reason, many vegetables and fruits, such as carrots, mangoes, and apricots, acquire red, orange, and yellow hues. However, since humans maintain a varied diet, foods containing carotenoids do not change skin color.
This only works with pink pigments — feeding flamingos blue food dye in hopes of coloring their feathers sapphire will not work.
Why Flamingos Are Pink: Expert Opinions
Dr. Paul Rose, a zoologist at the University of Exeter, claims that the food flamingos consume to achieve their pink coloration is specific and can be dangerous for other animals: “Flamingos inhabit hard-to-reach, relatively remote wetland areas — lakes with such alkaline pH that human flesh can burn down to the bone. However, this water contains an untapped food resource, such as crustaceans, cyanobacteria, and diatoms. All of these can be dangerous for many other animals as they contain toxic chemicals — carotenoids.”
In 2002, British and American scientists conducted a study titled “The Effect of Dietary Carotenoids on the Color of Plasma and Plumage of Domestic Finches: Intra- and Intersexual Variations.” In the scientific paper, the researchers confirmed the hypothesis that the decorative coloration of flamingos, whose diet mainly consists of algae, was brighter than that of birds that feed on small animals that eat algae.
Previously, scientists also found that flamingos with bright pink coloration are more aggressive than their less brightly colored relatives.
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