Riddle us this: Which animal is pink, curved beaked and a master of the physics required to create water tornadoes? If you guessed flamingos, you're right. New research out this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that across a range of harsh environments, flamingos have become masters — of physics, fluid dynamics and so much more — all in pursuit of their filter-fed prey. Short Wave host Regina G. Barber sits down with biomechanics researcher Victor Ortega Jiménez to hear all of the incredibly involved lengths these birds go through to get their prey. Want to hear about more physics or animal discoveries? Email us at [email protected] to tell us what areas of science you'd be interested in.Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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Hey, short wavers. Emily Kwong here with my co-host and our resident physicist, Regina Barber. Hey, Gina. Hey, Em. I have a really important physics question for you. Okay. What? Okay. Do you like flamingos? I love all birds, but flamingos are among the weirdest and the coolest. I think so. What does that have to do with physics? I'm going to show you a video of one feeding now. Okay.
Go ahead and pull it up. Oh, this is cute. OK, so, yes, we have this the classic pink leggy flamingo, but he's eating by dipping his head in the water. Yeah, he's got this curved beak at the end of his long neck and this large tongue. And I guess I didn't know they did this. He's stomping his feet in the water, too, like pep, pep, pep, pep, pep. Yeah, yeah.
And you'll notice his head is like upside down, like his eyes are going in first into the water. Yeah. And this pretty unusual feeding behavior, like, caught the eye of Victor Ortega Jimenez, and he studies biomechanics. Oh, so he studies how living things move. Yes, correct.
So back in 2019, during a trip to the Atlanta Zoo, Victor saw the flamingos feeding, like, opening and closing their beets, like, really, really, really quickly. And this is called chattering. And in the animal kingdom, this is, like, really bizarre. Like, animals don't really do all this. So as a scientist, Victor was like, why? Like, how?
The mystery of these magnificent birds, what are they doing inside of the fluid? And because I'm a biologist, the interesting part of knowing what is the interaction between the animal with the environment, in this case the fluid, to me was very attractive.
OK, this is a fluid dynamics story, isn't it? Yes. That's the physics part. Yes. And this question of like what's happening to the water with all this flamingo movement started years of research. It involved watching live flamingos, 3D printing flamingo beaks and feet. Nice.
And M, Victor and his team just recently published all their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And what they found surprised them. So much of this feeding behavior, the stomping, the beak chattering, the upside down head, sometimes like skimming the water and sometimes dipping in and out. It was all in pursuit of one thing. What's that? Water vortexes.
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