In nature, you can find many unique and amazing animals. What caused it and how does the bird manage to maintain such a beautiful color?
Bird ration and feather color
Flamingo chicks are born in gray. The plumage of their ash color. When they grow up, they become white, with the degree of maturation, their feathers acquire an exotic shade - pink, orange or red. What color the feathers of an adult flamingo will become depends on the habitat of the bird.
Scientifically proven that it is the food prevailing in the diet of the bird that determines its color. The pink shade can be of different intensities, it is determined by the concentration of carotenoids in the bird's food.
What are carotenoids and how do they affect feather color?
Carotenoids are pigments of organic origin that have been discovered by scientists in plants, vegetables, photosynthetic organisms. Flamingos eat food that has an orange and red color, hence the beautiful pink feathers. Carotenoids are fat soluble substances.
When they enter the body of flamingos, they dissolve in the liver of exotic animals and accumulate in feathers, which serve as their storage tank. The plumage acquires its original color due to the concentration of pigment in the body.
Interesting fact: If the bird is deficient in this organic pigment, the color intensity will gradually decrease.For this reason, it is possible to notice in one flock some animals with a brighter shade of feathers, others with almost white.
The color of flamingos - pink, orange or red, varies depending on the variety of carotenoids that animals use. That is why in nature there are different populations of this exotic bird around the world with different color intensities. If flamingos cease to eat foods rich in these organic pigments, their color will again turn white.
Algae and seafood - the basis of the diet of flamingos. The shores of the seas and salt lakes are rich in such food, where the species live. Spirulina algae, shrimp, red crustaceans - all this gives the birds a pink color. When these animals are kept in zoos, carotene-rich foods such as carrots, bell peppers, and mollusks are introduced into the diet to maintain an exotic shade of feathers.
What animals are still stained by food?
Flamingo is not the only animal that nature has awarded with such an amazing appearance. The same exotic color of feathers is the pink gull, pink lentils, pink starling and pink pelican. However, all these animals are already born with this color of feathers, flamingo acquires it.
It is believed that the diet can affect the color of animals such as a dog and a cat. The use of a large amount of carrots and seaweed will give the coat a reddish hue, but such changes can be seen only in light animals.
Laminaria affects the appearance of dogs with brown and chocolate coat. The color becomes more saturated and vibrant. Black dogs, on the contrary, from the use of seaweed become lighter.
Interesting fact: The lack of tyrosine amino acids in the diet of animals, from which melanin is synthesized - a pigment that gives the color of saturation, will make the dog or cat lighter. Black animals with a deficiency of this nutrient become tan.
With copper deficiency in the diet of a black or dark brown dog, its coat fades. Zinc deficiency is manifested by the appearance of gray hair in an animal.
The color of flamingo feathers is caused by eating foods rich in carotenoids - organic pigments. These substances are found in algae, worms, and mollusks. Different pigment concentrations give different intensities of the color of the feathers of the bird.
