Flamingos Walking

Flamingos walking are an impressive sight to see. They’re a symbol of beauty and grace, so when you see a group of them walking together, it’s likely they are on their way to a pond or lake for some sunbathing or a communal meal. Flamingos are also well-adapted for living in a variety of wetland habitat types, from saline lakes to salt marshes. This adaptation has allowed them to thrive where other birds struggle.

While flamingos have an amazing ability to live in so many different habitat types, they all depend on one thing: water. That’s why you’ll find them tucked away in the desert, or cruising through the swampy lagoons of Florida, or wading into a lake at the zoo.

Despite their colorful, flamboyant appearance, they’re not particularly fast or agile. In fact, their slow and steady pace is probably a strategy to avoid getting eaten by predators. But how exactly do flamingos walk? This is something that has fascinated scientists for a long time.

A new study published in the journal Biology Letters may have answered some of these questions. The researchers found that flamingos’ postural stability when standing on one leg is supported by an underlying mechanism called the “stay apparatus.” The stay apparatus allows flamingos to passively engage their proximal joints in order to hold their stance without active muscle force. The flamingo’s unique foot shape is the key to this, as it creates a favorable effective mechanical advantage for the knee and hip joint.

Researchers tested the flamingo’s stance by using a force plate to measure centre of pressure (CoP) displacement and velocity underneath the foot. During quiescent rest, flamingos’ CoP stayed beneath the tarsometatarsophalangeal (TMP) joint within 95% of the radius measured across 3 min of data. However, when flamingos became alert and started to move about by grooming or shaking their feathers, the CoP shifted significantly from the TMP joint to the tibial metatarsophalangeal (TMT) joint. The peak and root mean square (RMS) CoP velocities nearly doubled, as did the peak TMP displacement radius (see electronic supplementary material).

So why do flamingos stand on one leg for such prolonged periods of time? Previous research has suggested that they do so to reduce muscle fatigue or heat loss. But the new study finds that flamingos’ ability to engage their proximal joints passively is more important than any potential benefits of reducing muscle fatigue or heat loss.