A flamingo's pink comes not from its genes but from its diet. The algae and tiny brine shrimp it filters from salty water contain carotenoid pigments, which its body processes and deposits in its feathers. Chicks hatch with gray down and take two to three years to turn pink. Deprived of these pigments, a flamingo gradually fades.
In 2022, a young tagged bar-tailed godwit flew from Alaska to Tasmania in about 11 days of nonstop flight, covering 13,560 km without eating, drinking or landing. Before departure, these birds pile on huge fat reserves and shrink their digestive organs, which are useless during the journey.
To escape rivals, a dung beetle rolls its ball of dung in a straight line. At night, it holds its course using the glowing band of the Milky Way. In a planetarium, researchers showed that beetles rolled straight under a starry sky but wandered aimlessly when the galaxy was switched off. It was the first animal known to navigate this way.