Flamingos Are Actually Kind of Badass

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Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flamingos_Laguna_Colorada.jpg

Unless they’re made of plastic and being swung by their ankles at Mach 3 towards your eyeballs by a drunk neighbour, flamingos aren’t exactly the most intimidating of creatures. But did you know they could probably kick your ass, albeit in one incredibly specific way.

You see, flamingos live in areas that are, more often than not, covered in near to boiling water. Water which they can then stand in for hours at a time without any apparent discomfort while occasionally dunking their entire fucking head in it. 

What of it
“Caw!”

Think about how crazy that is. There are probably asshole fratboys who live in the gym out there who couldn’t climb into a slightly warm bath without first having to cradle their nuts like an injured squirrel. And flamingos, a bird that those same guys would likely describe as “hella gay” can just shove its entire face directly into boiling water whenever it wants.

But here’s the thing, flamingos can not only stand or submerge their head in near-boiling water and remain totally unharmed, but they can drink it too. This in of itself would be insane but flamingos can also up the ante by drinking boiling salt water. 

If you’re not sure that’s such a big deal, try drinking a glass of salt water. Actually, don’t do that because the best case scenario is that you’ll paint your bathroom with the lining of your stomach and the worst case scenario is that we might get sued. Essentially though, there are only a handful of animals that are able to drink saltwater without shitting out a lung and fewer still can do so indefinitely. The flamingo is one of those animals.

Flamingos are able to do this because of a special gland in their nose that lets them filter the salt out of water, presumably so they can either use it to preserve any fish they don’t want to eat right away or spray it into the eyes of people they dislike. Because of this adaptation, flamingos can thrive in places that many other animals, including humans, would consider inhospitable, hostile and kind of shitty and look fucking fabulous while doing so.

This means that you probably couldn’t punch a flamingo to death on its home turf since if you tried, you’d in all likelihood get horribly burnt, fall down in pain and then have like 80 flamingos suddenly start shitting on you.