Pink flamingos closeup at Casela Park

Le Flamant rose in French are not born pink, they become pink. Indeed, when the baby pink flamingo is born, it is not pink, but rather white or gray. It is only little by little, while growing up, that it becomes colored. If genetics doesn't explain its particular appearance, its diet does! Because it is indeed within its diet that we find the pigment responsible for this famous pink coloring. A diet which is essentially composed of insects, fish, aquatic plants and crustaceans. Thanks to its hooked beak, and with the help of its tongue, the pink flamingo manages to filter the salt water that it receives and to push back the mud which penetrates in its beak, to retain only the preys which it wishes to swallow. Among them: a pink algae and a species of shrimp called Artemia Salina. The pink color of flamingos can go from pinkish white to very dark pink, even orange. It all depends on the environment in which the flamingos live and the amount of food they can find. This is why, when they are raised in captivity and deprived of their natural habitat, some of them become grey again, or, if they have always been deprived of their natural habitat, never turn pink. In Mauritius you can find pink and white Flamingos in the famous park of Casela.