Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vola bam here. When you're on the dating scene, conventional wisdom tells us it's a good idea to maintain your appearance. Flamingos seem to know this too, and thus spend a lot of times smearing their necks with a secretion expressed by a gland on their rear ends. This secretion is part of why flamingos are usually a striking, fiery pink in color. But flamingos wouldn't have that color
if they ate different foods. Here's how it works. Many types of plants and algae produce compounds called carotenoids, which are the reddish pigments that give plants like carrots and pumpkins their warm hues, Although they also do occur in green plants like grass hidden away inside other intracellular structures.
Carotenoids are popular evolutionary feature in the plant kingdom because they help plants absorb light, which ant's need for photosynthesis of water and light into energy, and carotenoids also help protect from the harmful effects of sunlight. Among a few other functions. Further up the food chain, Carotenoids also give color to animals like shrimp, lobsters, and salmon. Flamingos dine primarily on brine trimp, which in turn feed on algae
rich in carotenoids. As a result of flamingo babies, which are gray or white at birth, eventually eat enough brine trimp to turn their feathers pink within the first couple of years of their lives. Their diets color their feathers
from the inside out, but that's not all. A research focused on flamingos in southern France that was published in September one in the journal Ecology and Evolution found that these birds also sneer their neck feathers with secretions that are rich in carotenoids that come out of the europygial gland on their rump. The europageal gland, also known as the pream gland or oil gland, is found in most birds, and its oil is distributed through the plumage by means
of preening. Flamingos preen with the especially carotene rich oil that they produce to help prevent their beautiful pink plumage from bleaching out in the sun, especially during breeding. Season, which is basically met galas season for flamingos. It's a little bit like applying rouge. The researchers discovered a correlation between carotenoid concentrations on the inside and outside of flamingo feathers, as well as the pinkness of an individual's feathers and
the concentration of pigments in their europygial secretions. When birds stood out in the sun all day, their color faded, but that wasn't the case for birds kept out of the sun. In order for the sun bathing birds to maintain breeding season worthy color, they had to constantly apply this europygial makeup, which only makes it more appropriate that
a group of flamingos are often called a flamboyance. Today's episode is based on the article Flamingo Rumps produced rouge to print pink plumage on how stuff Works dot Com, written by Jesselyn Shields. Brainstuffs production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com and it's produced by Tyler Clang and Ramsey Young. Four more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows,