![]() Do you care about democracy? Then support local journalism by subscribing to the Reno Gazette Journal right here. Hours: Daily, from dawn to dusk Ed Komenda writes about Las Vegas for the Reno Gazette Journal and USA Today Network.Flamingos wouldn't know how to eat a cake, even if it was baked especially for them. Note: The cake was purely cosmetic, Liptak said. Peachy recently turned 21 – an occasion that came with a big party and cake. "Peachy, our birthday boy, acts like he runs that exhibit," Liptak said. Peachy, a transplant from a Midwest zoo, has lived in the habitat since the summer of 2007. Some personalities are more pronounced than others.įlamingo on the runway: Passengers get unusual airport welcome in Mallorca "They're hormonal during the breeding season, so that's why when you looked at them before they went to the pond to eat the krill, they were in the back disagreeing, fighting over nesting areas, saying, 'I was here first.' Just like a soap opera you'd watch on TV." "They have a lot of bickering, a lot of disagreements," Liptak said. The personalities of flamingos, Liptak said, depend on the hormones flowing through their bodies.ĭuring breeding season, playground drama tends to define the habitat. Photos: Baby zoo animals you can visit around the USA Pigeons and emperor penguins also feed their young crop milk. Like mammals, baby flamingos for two months feed exclusively on an extremely nutritious secretion known as “crop milk.” Glands lining the parent flamingo’s upper digestive tract produce the high-fat substance that also contains the pigment that will help the growing birds get their color. "So sometimes they'll look a bit more pale." "They're feeding them milk that is high in that pigment as well," Liptak said. "It takes them about two years to gain their color."Īnd during breeding season, flamingos often change colors when they are feeding their chicks. The creatures are not born with the bright hue. “Chilean flamingos eat more algae and vertebrates – small crustaceans and the algae is what gives them that color.”īehind the scenes: Check out the Fountains of Bellagio with the divers who work thereĬarotenoid pigments – the same stuff that makes carrots orange – are what turn flamingos pink. ![]() “As they suck the water in, the tongue pushes out that water, and those little traps will catch all that food,” she said. Lamellae are comb-like structures that help the flamingos eat. “Inside of that banana-shaped bill are very small flaps or folds called lamellae.” “Of the six species of flamingo, their diets differ depending on how deep their bill is – so when they turn their head upside down, they wave it back and forth,” she said. Of course they are: Grasshoppers are invading Las Vegas. “A lot of the local birds retire here as well – a little manmade oasis right off of Las Vegas Boulevard.” ![]() “We have grackles, sparrows, hummingbird feeders all over as well,” she said. "The most detriment that usually comes to them is from poachers trying to steal their eggs.”Īt the wildlife habitat on the Strip, the flamingos deal with more freeloaders than anything. "They don’t really have a lot of predators," Liptak said. WATCH: How do flamingos sleep on one leg? The celebrity gangster was murdered at his Beverly Hills home the following year.īugsy the flamingo comes from a breed found in isolated areas of South America that tends to live in the wild up to 40 years. Siegel opened the famed Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 1946. A bird oasis on the Strip The centerpiece of the 15-acre exhibit is a flock of nine Chilean flamingos named Peachy, Omega, Pit, Petunia, Bubbalicious, Alpha, Pink Floyd, Blackjack and Bugsy – the last named after American mobster Bugsy Siegel. ![]()
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