Why do flamingoes, the silliest, pinkest birds in the animal kingdom, stand on one leg instead of two?
One may suspect it's just because they're not that bright, but scientists have recently discovered there's more to it than that.
Although some theories are... plausible?
For years, the flamingoes' motivation to stand on one leg instead of two was a mystery to many scientists.
Some theorized that the birds were trying to conserve body heat by keeping one leg out of the water, but there was never any proof to back this hypothesis up.
Just when it seemed like it was time to give up on the age-old flamingo leg question, neuromechanists Lena Ting from Emory University and Young-Hui Chang from the Georgia Institute of Technology had a breakthrough.
While playing with a couple dozen flamingo cadavers, they realized that, even dead, the flamingoes could balance on one leg with ease.
The scientists couldn't, however, get the dead flamingoes to stand upright with two legs, suggesting that the flamingo body is designed to lock into place and balance perfectly on one leg, conserving muscle energy.
Any good scientist will tell you it's still possible for the flamingoes to conserve both energy AND heat, as the original theory put forward, but the revelation that it's actually physically easier for a flamingo to balance on one leg is an important one.
Twitter understood how important this discovery was!
Well, many just wanted to make some jokes.
If you were looking for another reason to make flamingoes your favorite bird, this was it!
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