Physics, Not Genetics, Explains Why Flamingos Stand On One Leg

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There's an enormous evolutionary advantage for flamingos to stand on one leg, but only physics explains why.

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Instead, you're far more likely to find a flamingo, if it's in the water , doing what they're best known for: standing on one leg, with the other one tucked tight against its feathered body.

A familiar sight to most parents, a shivering, cold child who has spent too much consecutive time immersed in water will have lost a large amount of their body heat to the watery environment. With heat transfer rates that are 25 times as great between the human body and water compared to the human body and air, the conventional wisdom to get out of the pool in order to warm up is borne out by experience... and physics.

What about if you're a flamingo, then? If a flamingo stands in the water on two legs, those legs — and, in particular, those webbed feet with their enormous surface area — can easily cause a flamingo to lose its body heat many times as quickly as if it were on dry land alone.

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Seagulls, too! This pic taken on a cold November day, 2017, in Scituate Massachusetts seagulls beachchicken

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