Debunked popular myth about birds

Flamingos revealed their secret: the birds turned out to be skilled hunters with a unique technique. A new study published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has overturned scientists' understanding of these graceful creatures, showing that they masterfully create vortices to catch live prey - from the tiniest zooplankton to shrimp.

A team of scientists led by biomechanist Victor Ortega Jimenez from the University of California, Berkeley, revealed the amazing hunting strategy of these birds. It all begins with a real "dance" - flamingos rhythmically shuffle in shallow water, skillfully stirring up the silt with their flexible feet. This is followed by a lightning-fast raising of the head, which provokes the formation of vertical vortices that literally suck in prey. The birds' curved beaks create additional whirlpools, snapping at an impressive frequency of up to 12 times per second, which increases the efficiency of their hunting sevenfold.

Researchers paid special attention to the flexible webbing on flamingos' feet - they turned out to be significantly more effective than rigid analogues in creating directed water flows, making these birds' hunting technique truly unique.

This discovery radically changes the established view of flamingos as passive filter feeders and may find unexpected practical applications - from developing specialized robots for cleaning water bodies to creating innovative self-cleaning filters.