Coloring

              I would say that a lot of people believe that flamingos are pink because well, they just are. Actually there is a lot more to that. As you can see not all flamingos are pink. The reason that almost all flamingos are pink is because of their diets When you think about it a lot of animals aren't all the same color, just like how not all roses are red. Now with almost any animal you can change their color just based off of what they eat. Flamingos get their bright colors from the blue-green algae and the shrimp that they eat. The algae has carotenoids (groups of pigments often found in plants) that effect the color of the birds feathers, this make complete sense when you think of all of the pink flowers in nature, its all the same type of pigments.
               Most animals get their colors from the foods that they eat. Animals really don't have a use for photosynthesis, so they don't have any carotenoids either. The carotenoids are taken in and processed through the animals liver to change and spit out different colors to effect the animals appearance completely.
               This is actually a pretty cool thing in nature when you think about it. Almost anything can change color just based on its diet and the different carotenoids it consumes. Maybe we could have all different colors of flamingos instead of just pink, perhaps blue, green, maybe even purple. Any color all depends on the carotenoids going through the body.
                Since carotenoids are pigments found in all sorts of plants, it really shows all of the different carotenoids there are. Just think of all the different naturally occurring colors there are. There are flowers of all shades, blue, pink, red, white, yellow, purple, and orange. All different colors that can determine the color of something else, just by consumption. Science really works in wondrous ways when you think about it, just a tiny switch and something can be unlike its norm. Any little change in something can change a whole think to be almost unrecognizable as what it actually is. Would you really recognize a brown flamingo if there wasn't any others around it?
                 Next time you see a flamingo or any other colorful animal, just think of how differently they could look, just from a few changes. Maybe we will see blue flamingos someday, honestly a pink flamingo is good enough but anything goes right?