Why flamingoes stand on one leg

[Staff]

Why flamingoes stand on one leg
Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

BBC - Earth News - Why flamingoes stand on one leg
excerpt from above:

It is one of the simplest, but most enigmatic mysteries of nature: just why do flamingoes like to stand on one leg?

[hazelnut]

And Fulani herdsman. To stand on one leg watching their herds makes them not tire as easily as using both legs at the same time. Serial use makes their energy last longer while they watch their herds in the hot desert.

It is an environmental adaptation for the Fulani. I don't know why Flamingos stand on one leg -- possibly for the same reason.

Under the Acacias - a blog about the Fulani of Burkina Faso: Djibo

The weekly cattle market that meets down by the lake brings Fulani in from all the surrounding villages. Many of the herders are standing on one leg watching their animals, ...

One of my anthropology professors back in the old days would routinely stand on one leg. He was a young PhD. I asked him why he stood one one leg. It was a very striking pose since he was about 6'7".

He told me the story about how he fell into the niger river while he was doing field work in Africa. He was carried downstream by the current and finally washed up on the banks of the Niger - nearly dead. He was unconscious. He was found by Fulani herdsman who restored him except for a bad case of liver flukes from the river. And ever after he would stand on one leg -- like the Fulani did.

[Quietman]

Out here in the Ohio countryside, we all thought it was because it took less plastic.

All joking aside, great link! Thank you!

In a mischievous mood,

Quietman

P.S. While I might be making a poor joke, I have to admit I am always mystified why every other home/farm has one of those appalling, plastic, pink flamingoes planted by the mailbox with what can only be a solemn sense of pride or twisted sense of local Amish humor.