What color are flamingo chicks when they first hatch, before their diet changes their feather color?

Nature

What compound in a flamingo's diet is chiefly responsible for turning its feathers pink over time?

Flamingos are born gray or white. Their pink color comes from carotenoid pigments in their diet of algae and crustaceans over months.

Nature

Roughly what proportion of its body weight does a blackpoll warbler burn as fuel during its nonstop transatlantic migration flight?

Blackpoll warblers fly nonstop for 86 hours across the Atlantic Ocean, burning half their body weight in fuel.

Nature

Which African bird removes ticks and parasites from large mammals like rhinos and buffalo, but sometimes pecks open wounds to drink blood instead?

Oxpecker birds eat parasites off large animals, but sometimes peck open wounds and drink blood—the relationship shifts between helpful and parasitic mid-interaction.

Nature

In lanternsharks of the genus Etmopterus, what purpose do scientists believe their species-specific patterns of glowing photophores primarily serve?

Certain deep-sea sharks glow with a greenish bioluminescence visible only to other sharks, creating an invisible language humans couldn't detect until recent camera technology.

Nature

Bubble-net feeding in humpback whales is a cooperative behaviour. What role do the whales that remain BELOW the fish school typically perform?

Humpback whales create 'bubble nets' by swimming in circles below fish schools, then breach through the center to feast on thousands at once.

Nature

Unlike air-breathing divers, how do deep-sea squid and fish near the Dumbo octopus's habitat withstand crushing water pressure?

Dumbo octopuses live deeper than Mount Everest is tall, yet squid and fish in the same zone survive crushing pressures using only seawater.