How does the flamingo stand with one leg?

ByJosh More

Flamingo has a habit of alternating with one leg and it is possible to sleep with one leg as it is. Speaking of humans, yogaStanding wood poseAlthough I am doing a rough skill that sleeps while taking it, why flamingo stands with one foot without using both feet is not clarified scientifically by some theories. Two researchers investigated the habit of such flamingos and explain how flamingos stand with one leg.

One-legged stance in flamingos | Biology Letters
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/5/20160948

Neuromechanics of flamingos' amazing feats of balance
https://theconversation.com/neuromechanics-of-flamingos-amazing-feats-of-balance-78160

Why Flamingos Are More Stable on One Leg Than Two - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/flamingos-one-leg/527781/?single_page=true

There are several hypotheses about the reason why Flamingo stands with one leg, and there are some hypotheses, "To avoid getting body temperature by putting it on water with just one foot" or "To avoid muscle fatigue by standing on one leg alternately To reduce the number "and so on. Regarding the latter, it will be based on the further hypothesis that "Flamingos standing on both feet rather than stand on one foot" will be based on further hypothesis, but there have been no studies that demonstrated these hypotheses so far.

So Yang Wei Zhang of Georgia Institute of Technology and Rena Ting of Emory University studied to elucidate the habits of flamingos. According to research authors, many animals use most of the metabolic energy they consume to activate the muscles, for example to rise against gravity, and so on. If flamingos are consuming energy to stand on one leg, the first hypothesis is "to consume energy to conserve energy to avoid thermal energy loss" and contradictory I will excuse you.

When a person stands bending his legs, it becomes a state of squat and an enormous load is applied to the muscles of the foot. Flamingo's legs are human, the part visible on the knee is the ankle, the knee of the structure is always refracted in the wing part, and the flamingo is load-bearing on the knee to support the weight. However, many creatures have evolved to minimize energy consumption, which allows horses to sleep consistently while standing, bats can hang on trees without losing their hands while sleeping I will. Likewise, flamingos are thought to have a mechanism that can stand stably with one foot.


In order to investigate whether flamingos are dependent on passive biomechanics or active nervous system, the research team conducted experiments using a device like a Wii balance board called "force plate" I did it. The Force Plate can quantify the "swaying posture" of the animals on which you are watching, and you can see the movies that are actually being measured by placing the flamingo children borrowed from the Atlanta Zoo onto the Force Plate.

Measuring postural sway - YouTube


As a result of the measurement, when flamingo stands with one leg standing and sleeping is the smallest fluctuation of the posture, if you wake up and got up and fight with your colleagues at the time of one leg, the value of the shake of the posture rose sevenfold He said that he did. It is difficult for a human being to keep standing with one foot standing while standing, but it is presumed that flamingos are equipped with a biomechanical stabilization mechanism for standing with one foot completely opposite to humans .


When the research team examined the skeleton and structure of the carcass of Flamingo, it turned out that two phenomena occurred when Flamingo became one leg from two legs. One is that the position of the foot naturally comes to the middle of the body when it is one leg, and the other moves to the knee where the center of gravity is hidden, so that the weight naturally is pulled by the waist and the knee It is said that. When these two phenomena occur, it seems that the structure of the foot of the flamingo, pulled by the gravity, will maintain the position where all the joints can stand well with one leg.

Also, in the state of one leg, the body maintained a stable foot state even if it bent up to 45 degrees, but if you bend the body with two legs, the joints of the feet would rather be in an unstable state about. At least Flamingo has been found to be "a comfortable person standing with one leg" and the hypothesis that "it avoids depriving the body temperature by putting it on water with only one foot" will also be established .


Although the mechanism by which flamingo stands with one leg in this research is not completely elucidated, investigating flamingo having a structure different from a person is a new system which maintains a stable posture with less energy of a prosthetic gear and a robot It is possible that there is also possibility to develop.