This week we have a TPL Kids website visitor who might have been watching a nature documentary and wondered… why are flamingos pink?
We found an answer to this wonder in an article from BBC Science Focus magazine
Actually, flamingos are not pink. 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.
So the next time you visit a Zoo and looking at the bright pink flamingos (or see some plastic ones on a lawn) think about how different they would look if they changed their diet.