Why are flamingos pink? – ‘The Why’

Why are flamingos pink?

Welcome to the newest edition of The Why.
Everywhere you look the media is pushing you telling you who to follow, what to watch and when to watch it.   You’re even sometimes told how to do it all.  Truth is, here at American Live Wire we do a bit of that too.  The big difference is we also tell you why.

You ask the questions.  We provide the answers.

“Why are flamingos pink?” you ask?

Well, some flamingos are actually other colors such as orange or white.  Still, we get the idea.  By asking the question: “Why are flamingos pink?” you really want to know how those birds got to be the odd colors that they are.

Why are flamingos pink?

OK.  Let’s get to it.  If you have ever been to the zoo you might recall that a flamingo’s color is influenced by something it eats.  That’s absolutely true.  But let’s get more specific.

According to sources such as WebExhibits a flamingo’s feathers, face and legs are colored by its diet which is generally “rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments.”  Sources such as About.com offered more details in response to “Why are flamingos pink?”

They note that the birds are orange, pink, white or even a mixture of those colors depending on their diet.  Most flamingos dine on crustaceans and algae that contain pigments known as carotenoids.   More specifically, the pigments are present in both blue-green algae and brine shrimp.

Enzymes in the flamingo’s liver break down these carotenoids into the orange or pink pigment molecules that are eventually deposited in the flamingo’s bill, feathers and legs.  If the birds eat a diet of mainly algae their colors will be deeper than the ones who eat the small creatures that feed off of said algae.

Flamingos in the zoo are often fed a specially-prepared food that had prawns in it.  (Prawns are, of course, pigmented crustaceans.)  They are also sometimes fed food additives like canthaxanthin or beta-carotene.  If not for this special diet the flamingos would not be pink or orange but white or at best a pale pink.  (In fact, very young flamingos actually are gray before their diet kicks in and changes their color.)

Now that we’ve answered the questions: “Why are flamingos pink?”  Here is one interesting bit of trivia before closing.  Carotenoids are found in foods that people eat, too.  Witness the presence of lycopene in watermelon and beta-carotene in carrots.

In theory if a human could eat enough of these foods they would change the color of his/her skin.  Do we have any pregnant women or mothers of very young children who have an odd sense of humor in our readership?  Get started on that Halloween “costume” now.

(Just kidding!  You really don’t want your kid to look like a pretty flamingo, do you?)

“Why are flamingos pink?”  Now you know.

You ask the questions.  We provide the answers.

American Live Wire . . . Listen and be heard.

(Image courtesy of Robert K. Brown)