Friday, September 18, 2009

My Blog For Why Flamingos Stand On One Leg





Nature has its many mysteries. One of the many mysteries is why flamingos stand on one leg. Flamingos usually stand on one leg while they are resting or while taking a nap. There are many explanations to why, but none of them have ever been tested. However, Mathew Anderson is determined to find out.

Mr. Anderson has studied many flamingos and their behaviors. For example, "why do flamingos bend their backs to the right and not the left when they are asleep?" Mr. Anderson has two theories. First, there is the fatigue theory. Scientists believe that standing on one leg helps keeps their muscles from stiffening. He also thinks that it would help them escape when being hunted down by a predator. However, this fatigue theory was no success. After some research, scientists found out that flamingos escaped more quickly when they were on two legs.

The second theory was thermoregulation. He believed that the strange posture may be related to conserving body heat. This theory had greater success than the previous one. They discovered that birds favored standing on one leg when the temperature was cooler. Also, he believes that when flamingos come out of water, their body temperature drops very quickly, so they need to save as much heat as they can. However, my opinions were slightly different.

No offence to Mr. Anderson, but I think he was trying a bit too hard to come up with theories.
I believe that their position is probably a comfortable way for them to relax. For example, this ties along with the thermoregulation idea, when we're cold we cuddle ourselves to stay warm. Maybe that's what the flamingos are trying to do and he just tried to explain in it in a more scientific and complicated way. They're probably tiring to keep as many body parts close together as possible without falling, so they keep one leg down. Another answer maybe as simple as nature. Animals that walk on four feet may be wondering why we walk on two feet when we could walk on four, but it's just our nature. There can obviously be many theories to why flamingos stand on one leg, but for right now only god, and the flamingos, know the real answer.

I got my information from http://www.livescience.com/animals/090917-flamingos-one-leg.html

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