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Friday 6 February 2015

Flamingo

Flamingos are pink because they eat a lot of shrimp and algae that contain reddish colors called carotenoids.

Flamingos lay only a single egg each year.

Flamingo chicks are born gray or white and take up to three years to reach their mature pink, orange or red plumage.

A well-fed, healthy flamingo is more vibrantly colored and thus a more desirable mate; a white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or malnourished.

Flamingos pair for a lifetime. Some stay with their mates for 50 years or more.

Colony of flamingos at Lake Nakuru. By Syllabub -  Wikipedia Commons

A group of flamingos is called a “flamboyance.”

A Flamingo’s skin color is determined by the food that it eats.

Flamingos can only eat when their heads are upside down.



In Ancient Rome, flamingo tongues were considered a delicacy.

Flamingo milk is bright red. Both mother and father flamingos produce it.

Flamingos have 19 vertebrae in their necks.

Flamingos can sleep in ponds that freeze around their legs at night.

They can live in lakes that expose them to arsenic and poisonous gases. Such conditions are so toxic that the water would strip away human skin.

In the United States, pink plastic flamingo statues are popular lawn ornaments. In fact there are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.

Lewis Carroll immortalized croquet in Alice in Wonderland when he depicted the Red Queen wacking rolled up hedgehogs using a flamingo for a mallet.

An 83-year-old greater flamingo, believed to be the oldest in the world, died at Adelaide Zoo in Australia in January 2014. They normally live up to around 47 years.

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