What Do Flamingos Eat?

Diet

• Flamingos primarily eat a combination of small invertebrates, such as crustaceans and mollusks and blue algae. They also may eat small fish and crabs.

Feeding Habits

• To eat, a flamingo walks on the muddy bottom of a body of water to stir up any food that might be resting there. Then, the flamingo puts its head into the water upside down and moves it from side to side, which fills the flamingo's beak with a mixture of food and water that it then filters out.

Filtering Food

• A flamingo's tongue and beak are specially adapted to filter feeding--filtering out the water and retaining the small pieces of food. Their spiny tongues pump water through their beaks, while the lamellae, or small ridges within their mouths, catch the food so the flamingo can swallow it.

The Flamingo's Color

• The flamingo's pink color comes from its diet. The crustaceans and algae that the flamingo eats are both high in beta-carotene, and birds without sufficient beta-carotene are paler than other flamingos.

Feeding Flamingo Chicks

• Rather than regurgitating food for their chicks, both male and female flamingos produce dark red, nutritious crop milk, secreted by the upper digestive track. Flamingos provide this food for their chicks until the chicks' beaks are fully developed for filter feeding.