I heard that in zoos, flamingoes have a special dye in their food that keeps their feathers pink. If someone put in a different colored dye, like blue, could they turn blue? Thanks.
2007-03-26 00:41:33 · 4 answers · asked by Steve 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
In the wild flamingoes take their colour from the food they eat. In zoos they are fed on a different diet, so to retain their 'natural' colour a dye is added. If you could find a suitable dye then you could have any colour of flamingo you want, but it would have to be metabolised by the flamingo in the same way as the dye used to make them pink. Just picking some blue dye wouldn't necessarily work.
More to the point though: why would you want a blue flamingo?
2007-03-26 00:51:11 · answer #1 · answered by David M 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In the wild flamingoes take their colour from the food they eat. In zoos they are fed on a different diet, so to retain their 'natural' colour a dye is added. If you could find a suitable dye then you could have any colour of flamingo you want, but it would have to be metabolised by the flamingo in the same way as the dye used to make them pink. Just picking some blue dye wouldn't necessarily work.
2007-03-26 08:23:25 · answer #2 · answered by Professsor Daniel 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Flamingoes turn pink because of the algea they eat. If you give a white bird a lot of carrots to eat it's feathers when they came in would have a yellowish tinge (this also can happen to your own child if you give it a lot of carrots) so I see no reason why a white flamingo could turn blue eventually if it was fed blue dye. However, I would be concerned for its health due to a poor diet. Do you think more likely it would be a purple flamingo? The pink from the algea + your blue dye makes purple.
2007-03-26 07:47:41 · answer #3 · answered by not too creative 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There was an aqua colored one in Chicago the other week!
2007-03-26 07:58:27 · answer #4 · answered by Tom ツ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋