The red and blue. Actually flamingos are not pink.

Why Are Flamingos Pink Metro News

Carotenoids are essential to maintaining the flamingo s signature color.

What makes flamingos pink. Flamingos eat algae and crustaceans that contain pigments called carotenoids. Who would of knew your eyebrows are there to keep sweat and rain drops from falling into your eyes. The bright pink color of flamingos comes from beta carotene a red orange pigment that s found in high numbers within the algae larvae and brine shrimp that flamingos eat in their wetland environment.

Their tendency to eat both vegetation and meat makes them omnivores. I loved knowing little facts like 50 of the time bank robberies are taken on a friday. Like flamingos are pink because of what they eat such as algae.

A flamingo s diet primarily consists of aquatic organisms such as shrimp and algae high in pigments called carotenoids. Flamingos are pink or orange or white depending on what they eat. Flamingos are pink because the algae they consume are loaded with beta carotene an organic chemical that contains a reddish.

Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp. So why are flamingos pink as adults. For the most part these pigments are found in the brine shrimp and blue green algae that the birds eat.

Brine shrimp to be exact. They are born with grey feathers which gradually turn pink in the wild because of a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin that they obtain from their diet of brine shrimp and blue green algae. They scoop up shrimp in their strangely curved beaks which they hold upside down in order to strain our mud and water.

Enzymes in the liver break down the carotenoids into the pink and orange pigment molecules that are absorbed by fats deposited in the feathers bill and legs of the flamingos. Flamingos live by lakes swamps and wetlands and so they eat mostly algae insect larvae and small crustaceans such as shrimp and mollusks. Carotenoids are the same pigments that cause shrimp to turn from gray to pink when they re boiled.

In fact it s true. For flamingos the phrase you are what you eat holds more truth than it might for humans. Rich swarms of tiny brine shrimp inhabit salty lakes in both of the world s hemispheres and it is to these lakes that flocks of flamingos travel in search of their meals.