Flamingos Make Tiny Tornadoes In Water To Trap Their Prey
Masters of fluid dynamics, the pink birds use everything from the shape of their feet to the chattering of their bills to vastly increase the number of shrimp they can catch.
Stephen Luntz
Freelance Writer
Edited
by
Laura Simmons
Flamingos have taken over many parts of the world where other birds can't survive, in part through their mastery of fluid dynamics.
Image credit: rhys logan/Shutterstock.com
Flamingos are not passive filter feeders, but active hunters of prey, a new study reveals. Instead of chasing their diverse diet, they create disturbances in the water that force the food items to come to them, a much more efficient approach.
The curiosity a trip to Zoo Atlanta inspired in Dr Victor Ortega Jiménez of the University of California, Berkeley has led to an extensive quest to understand the feeding behavior of flamingos. The activity beneath the water line turns out to be remarkably complex, and could provide valuable tips for how humans could concentrate objects in water, such as microplastics for removal.
Flamingos feed on everything suitably sized in shallow water, from brine shrimp to insect larvae and insects themselves. Famously their color comes from carotenoids in blue-green algae they either eat directly, or consume through aquatic algal-feeding animals. What has only been discovered now is how they maximize the concentration of their food, so they do not need to sweep through too much water to meet their needs.
Ortega Jiménez could only see ripples on the surface when the zoo’s flamingos were feeding, but he thought more must be going on beneath. His quest led him to film flamingos feeding with underwater cameras, lighting up bubbles in the water with lasers to detect the underlying movement.
To confirm what was happening, Ortega Jiménez and colleagues not only developed computer models of water dynamics, but 3D printed flamingo beaks and feet to see how their shape and movement affected the water. The quest continued at four universities spanning America.
More:
https://www.iflscience.com/flamingos-make-tiny-tornadoes-in-water-to-trap-their-prey-79194
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Watch flamingos create water tornadoes to trap their prey
May 14, 2025
Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
Chilean flamingo. Credit: Victor Ortega Jiménez, UC Berkeley
Flamingos are known for posing serenely on one leg in extreme wetlands, placidly bobbing their heads into the shallow water to feed. But a new study has revealed there’s more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye.
It seems flamingos create controlled underwater chaos to actively trap their prey, according to the research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
They use a repertoire of behaviours, including stomping feet, jerking heads, and chattering beaks, to create swirling “underwater tornadoes” that concentrate and funnel prey into their mouths.
“Flamingos are actually predators, they are actively looking for animals that are moving in the water,” says lead author of the paper Victor Ortega Jiménez, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of California Berkeley in the US.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/birds/flamingos-water-tornadoes/
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