Mystery solved: How flamingos can sleep while standing on one leg
HUMANS consider standing on one leg something best done in a yoga class. Flamingos, on the other hand, consider it the most comfortable sleeping position.
The reason behind it remains obscure. Some scientists hypothesised it might have to do with regulating body temperature. Others wondered if it reduced muscle fatigue.
Atlanta biologists Young-Hui Chang of Georgia Tech and Lena Ting of Emory University set out to find a definitive reason.
It began with an unsuccessful stakeout at Zoo Atlanta.
“We really wanted to do an experiment where we just walked over and gave them a little prod,” Chang told the Atlantic. “But the zoo wouldn’t let us.”
So they put out a call to area zoos. Alabama’s Birmingham Zoo had just euthanised two flamingos, which they sent to the researchers.
The duo began examining them, when something astounding happened. Chang held one of the cadavers up by its leg, which immediately snapped into place. He was able to place the dead bird on the table, where it stood as if it were merely sleeping.
“It was a light bulb moment,” Chang said. “We weren’t expecting it to be stable, but it totally was.”
Even more surprising? The cadavers couldn’t stand on two legs.
Instead of using active muscle force to keep their balance on one leg the flamingo’s unique skeletal and muscular systems allow for gravity to do the trick, the scientists reported in a study published in Biology Letters. — Washington Post