Why do flamingos stand on one leg

They started watching the flocks to try to figure out if flamingos had a particular right or left preference when craning their necks to rest their heads on their backs. The scientists thought that the preference might extend to which leg they stand on.

Flamingos spend a lot of time partially immersed as they live, feed and breed in lagoons or other large bodies of shallow water. She notes that some flamingos are found high in the Andes, braving blowing snow and freezing temperatures. According to Anderson, flamingos pull one leg up close to their body to conserve heat that might otherwise be lost while standing in cold water—not just in the Andes, but in the tropics, too, where even a slight drop in water temperature could mean big losses, due to the length of a flamingo leg.

Instead, they said, it appears that flamingos share a primitive feature also seen in whales and dolphins: the ability to shut down half the brain while sleeping. That keeps the underwater animals from drowning while asleep.

And, standing on one leg would keep them from falling over and drowning, because flamingos—unlike ducks, for instance—have a build that lets them easily stand on one leg without losing their balance or having to harshly angle their knee or ankle joints.

I would like to see why owls can turn their heads so far. One reason that flamingos stand on one leg is to maintain body temperature. On paragraph 5, it says, " a long naked leg exposes lots of skin to cool temps and water But if flamingos tuck that same leg up into their down parka of a body it stays toasty warm.

Flamingos stand on one leg because of the climate. The flamingos stand on one leg to keep warm because of the water and cold air surrounding it. Teacher Sign Up. Why do flamingos stand on one leg? Assign to Google Classroom. Filed Under: Animals Video Smithsonian. Please log in to post a comment. Tweens in the news. While we can confidently explain why flamingos have pink feathers , there are competing theories about another of their distinctive characteristics — why they stand on one leg.

The most likely explanation for this avian balancing act is that it helps them conserve body heat. One study discovered that flamingos are significantly more likely to stand on one foot in bodies of water than on land , while another found them to adopt a one-legged stance more often when the weather is colder.

Although it sounds counter-intuitive, it may also be that it takes less effort for flamingos to stand on one leg than on two. In , a study of flamingo cadavers found that they can passively support their body weight on one leg without any muscle activity, but they cannot maintain balance holding a two-legged pose.