TIL Flamingos can live in lakes that are so toxic that the water would strip away human skin.

Source: reddit

Africa’s most toxic lakes are a paradise for fearless flamingos

All flamingo species have evolved to live in some of the planet’s most extreme wetlands, like caustic “soda lakes”, hypersaline lagoons or high-altitude salt flats.

One species, the lesser flamingo, has taken this relationship to the limit.

Most are found in super-alkaline lakes throughout Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which host immense blooms of microscopic blue-green algae (called cyanobacteria). These poisonous plants produce chemicals that, in most animals, can fatally damage cells, the nervous system, and the liver. The lesser flamingo, however, can consume enormous amounts with no ill effects (unless you count their colorful plumage, which comes from a pigment in the algae).

Two of the lesser flamingo’s preferred habitats, Lake Bogoria in Kenya and Lake Natron in Tanzania, are hypersaline and hostile to practically all other forms of life (Natron water can even strip away human skin).

For the flamingos this a bonus. Special tough skin and scales on their legs prevent burns, and they can drink water at near boiling point to collect freshwater from springs and geysers at lake edges. If no freshwater is available, flamingos can use glands in their head that remove salt, draining it out from their nasal cavity.

With few other animals able to cope in such conditions, there is minimal competition for food, and these toxic wetlands are home to massive flocks.

Million-strong gatherings provide several benefits. Mass synchronized nesting gives flamingos the best possible chance to raise the maximum number of chicks, while on choppy days a dense mass of birds swimming together also helps create the optimal feeding environment (still water) within the center of the group.

Sheer numbers also make it harder for predators like hyenas or jackals to identify individual victims.

As such, a single flamingo is not a happy flamingo. The species is happiest in huge gatherings, and these won’t occur around…

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