Diet
- Flamingos eat blue-green and red algae, diatoms, small insects, crustaceans, molluscs, and small fishes
- Standing in shallow water, flamingos lower their necks and tilt their heads slightly upside-down, allowing their bills to hang upside-down facing backward in the water
- Flamingos sweep their heads from side to side close to the surface of the water to collect their food
- Then the flamingo filters its food out of the water and mud with a spiny, piston-like tongue that aids in sucking food-filled water past the lamellae inside the curved bill. The fringed lamellae filter out food, and the water is passed back out of the bill