Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
flamingos flying over tanzania’s lake natron, a salt lake which is home to three quarters of the world’s three million lesser flamingos, as well as toxic multicoloured extremophile cyanobacteria that thrive in water so hypersaline it would strip away human skin. for the flamingos, however, the tough skin and scales on their legs prevents burning, leaving them uniquely free to drink from the near boiling freshwater found from springs and geysers at the lake’s edges. (x, x, x, x, x)
Anonymous:
I was wondering, I know phoenix is a mythical creature but is it herbivore or a carnivore or perhaps an omnivore like if it's real what do you think it'll eat but if I look at the beak and claws it's similar to an eagle I think?
great news, phoenixes aren’t actually mythical creatures at all!
in fact, here’s one right now:
that’s right, the myth of the phoenix was very likely started by this actual real bird, in Africa! right on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, actually.
riiight about… HERE.
this is Lake Natron.
Lake Natron is an alkaline salt lake of volcanic origin, where the water is as caustic as pure ammonia and can be hotter than a sauna at 140 F!
what lives here? not much. just the extremophile bacteria that gives the water and salt flats their pink tint, really.
oh, and these guys.
that’s right, if you’re a Lesser Flamingo, this volcanic hellscape is home sweet home! they live in the lake year-round, feeding on the bacteria that they painstakingly filter out of the near-boiling waters with their hooked beaks.
and at some point, some traveling humans presumably noticed a flock of giant pink birds taking flight from a poisonous and hard-to-reach bright-red hellscape, with billowing clouds of steam that might have looked like smoke from a distance, and took word to the nearest settlement. and from there the tale passed on through the old world, eventually growing into the legend of the bird that sets itself alight to be reborn that we know and love today!
Oh!! gosh that’s tough actually. My first instinct is to say penguins, but flamingos are fucking badass.
Flamingos court and nest in highly alkaline lakes that would kill most other animals. They gather in huuuge flocks, like in the thousands. The lakes where they live sometimes freeze at night, so the birds are trapped and must wait until morning to free themselves.
There is a lake in Tanzania, Lake Natron, which supports 75% of the world’s flamingo population. There’s a bit about it in one of the nature docs that has come out in the last few years. Might be Planet Earth? Definitely worth watching and learning more about these incredible, and highly specialized, birds.
Penguins! I mean this is kinda tough bc penguins are a broad category!! You have your Emperor penguins (tallest), well known nowadays from March of the Penguins. But also Little Blue penguins (smallest)! Chinstrap penguins (one personal fav)! There is even a species sometimes called the Jackass penguin bc their calls sound like donkeys.
Not all penguins live in Antarctica. They can be found in S. America, Africa, and Oceania. There are even penguins above the Equator in the Galapagos! (but not the arctic! polar bears and penguins never meet in the wild) Some even spend the breeding season in towns among people. (If I can suggest another nature doc, Penguin Town is adorable)
Some have cool hair styles like the Macaroni and Rockhopper penguins. Rockhoppers lay their eggs in the same nest year after year.
We love how cute they look waddling over land, but they fly through the water. It’s beautiful and amazing to watch.
Another fun fact about penguins is they were named based on their resemblance to a northern bird, called an Auk or Great Auk, which is now extinct. Consequently, the genus “Pinguinus” is used for auks, but not for penguins, as they are not closely related. Taxonomy!
You wouldn’t think that flamingoes are extremophiles just from looking at them. It’s like somebody tried to build the vertebrate equivalent of that fungus that lives inside nuclear reactors, and ended up with a gangly pink dinosaur with a spoon for a face.
For everyone in the comments asking how flamingos are extremophiles:
Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning
Don’t fuck with flamingos
….. Didn’t know most of that
Huh… so that’s why zoos don’t put them somewhere warm during winter.
Oh yeah, this leaves out what I *did* know about them–they can also survive hypersalinity. That is, water so salty it kills practically everything else–water so salty it burns your skin.
American flamingos just drink that shit
(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.
When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.
It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:
Thank you to all my new followers (now at 400) I will strive to not bore you.
Here’s some pretty birds.
Is it horrible of me that I’m reminded of shrimp?
No, it isn’t! Flamingos get their pink coloration from the plankton they eat, some of which is brine shrimp. If a flamingo is starving or improperly fed, it will lose its color.
