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TIL that flamingos are among the species of birds that can secrete a substance analogous to milk from the linings of their crops*, and that flamingo milk is blood red in colour, making the process falsely appear rather gory (google “flamingo milk” with caution if you’re squeamish). It contains the same stuff that makes their feathers pink, and the colour drains out of the parents during the months they feed their young this way.
Anyway the first thing that came to mind after I read this was the medieval legend about pelicans feeding their chicks on their own blood— usually this gets explained as “people saw pelicans preening and thought they were stabbing themselves,” but now I wonder if this belief originated with flamingos and a mistranslation occurred somewhere along the way. I tried googling “pelicans medieval blood flamingoes” to see if anyone else had raised this possibility, and apparently somebody did in 1869.
* The others that can are: all doves and pigeons; and penguins, but only Emperor penguins, and probably just the males. None of these groups are closely related, which suggests that not only did they evolve lactation independently from mammals, but also independently from each other.
Anyway the first thing that came to mind after I read this was the medieval legend about pelicans feeding their chicks on their own blood— usually this gets explained as “people saw pelicans preening and thought they were stabbing themselves,” but now I wonder if this belief originated with flamingos and a mistranslation occurred somewhere along the way. I tried googling “pelicans medieval blood flamingoes” to see if anyone else had raised this possibility, and apparently somebody did in 1869.
* The others that can are: all doves and pigeons; and penguins, but only Emperor penguins, and probably just the males. None of these groups are closely related, which suggests that not only did they evolve lactation independently from mammals, but also independently from each other.
