Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp - Fact Check

Carotenoids give carrots their orange color or turn ripe tomatoes red. They are also found in the microscopic algae that brine shrimp eat. As a flamingo dines on algae and brine shrimp, its body metabolizes the pigments — turning its feathers pink.

If flamingos didn't feed on brine shrimp, their blushing plumage would eventually fade. Bradford, Alina. "Flamingo Facts: Food Turns Feathers Pink." LiveScience.

Well, flamingos are just that. They get their reddish-pink colour from special colouring chemicals called pigments found in the algae and invertebrates that they eat. The same effect is seen when shrimps change their colour during cooking.

You may have heard that it’s because they eat shrimp, but the real answer is a little more complex. Flamingos and shrimp are actually both pink from eating algae that contains carotenoid pigments.

Caribbean, Chilean, and Greater ... stir up shrimp and larvae from the waterbed. Flamingo feathers obtain their wonderful rosy pink color from pigments in the organisms they eat. The flamingos’ feathers, legs, and face are colored by their diet, which is rich in alpha and beta carotenoid ...

Once ingested, the specific type of carotenoid determines the final shade of the bird. Key carotenoids include beta-carotene, canthaxanthin, and astaxanthin, with the latter two resulting in the most vivid pink and red colors.

The details vary because diet and environment vary across flamingo species. Flamingos turn pink because flamingo carotenoids from algae and brine shrimp-like prey become part of feather structure.

If you buy into the theory that you are what you eat and that eating pink shrimp turns birds pink, this next part will give you something else to think about. Shrimp aren’t even pink. Oh sure, they look pink after they have been cooked, but before that they are a hideous mucous gray color. With the exception of the wealthy ones that live in South Beach, Florida, very few flamingos cook their food.

If you want to know if flamingo poop is pink, the answer is no. Sadly, that brine shrimp that gives flamingos their brilliant pink color does not do the same to their excrement.