It turned out why flamingos stand on one leg.
Flamingos can stand on one leg in my sleep. In fact, they are not so hard to do — in this position they spend less energy, American scientists have found.
At Georgia tech and Emory University in Atlanta studied the feet of the Flamingo as the living and the dead. It turned out that the one-legged pose of the birds helps them do not use any muscular power. For example, the bodies of the birds is also excellent standing on one leg without any support. While dead birds could not stand on two legs if they are not kept: that is, the position on two feet requires more muscular effort.
Scientists believe that this is due to the mechanism of the so-called passive gravitational standing, which ceases to function when the bird jumps on both legs.
When Flamingo is the usual one-legged position, the joints of birds are recorded regardless of where it may move lower leg.
Dr. Kathleen Kite, expert in Flamingo at Exeter University, said the study by American colleagues, “intriguing”, though, should be further explored with a larger sample.
Although the authors of the study suggest that one-legged position is just a way to save energy, this does not exclude that it helps the birds keep warm. If bird watching in cold weather, you may notice that rare Flamingo stands on two legs.
However, while scientists can not explain the anatomical mechanism which allows birds to easily stand in one-legged pose.
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