Why do flamingos turn pink from what they eat?
Pink Buffet Birds
Why do flamingos turn pink from what they eat?
Flamingos are born gray. Fluffy, awkward, completely gray. Then, over months and years, something wild happens: they turn pink. Bubblegum pink. Sunset pink. Sometimes even orange-red, like a traffic cone decided to become a bird. The secret? Dinner.
Flamingos eat tiny shrimp and algae all day long. They dunk their beaks upside-down in shallow water and filter out thousands of these little creatures, hour after hour. It's like running a non-stop buffet through their mouths. And hidden inside those shrimp and algae are molecules called carotenoids—the same pigments that make carrots orange and tomatoes red.
