Can someone help me out please. Last night i had an argument with my nextdoor neighbour over why seagulls will stand on one leg. She was hell bent on the idea that the standing on one leg causes humans to think the gull only has one leg, then feel pity on it and feed it. I refused to believe this, but the only argument i could come up with is that they are, due to the fact their legs have no feathers, trying to keep warm.
My neighbour is a third year uni student, but you will all be relieved to know that she is not studying zooology.
Not exactly. Their non-standing leg isn’t getting much insualtion, at least with these Greater Flamingos at Busch Gardens Tampa. Only part of the upper leg is covered. I wonder if there are other reasons for standing on one leg? In the case of the flamingos they’re usually in water, so it could still be to keep warm. Or it could be to reduce surface area for predators (like the flamingo with half its leg gone)?
Miyata names its unicycles after flamingos, presumably because they like to stand on one leg.
Now I’ve noticed the bird on the right has its whole leg pretty well covered, so maybe it is the same thing…
yes birds typically analyze human behavior and have long coffee chats about the best way to get bread crumbs. I think they stand on one leg just to mess with your friend, then others caught on, you know how fads go. Its getting kinda cliche’ now but those flammingos have always been a bit to trendy for the rest of the birds. I hear seagulls complaining about them all the time.
But yeah, good thread, I’d never thought about it before.
Some of the theories sound quite plausible but I love the fact that science isn’t entirely sure why they do it.
I don’t know anything about birds but I’m pretty sure humans balance on 2 legs in order to hide their arms. This way, God thinks we have only 2 legs and feels pity for us.
That’s why nobody’s starving on this good ol’ Earth.
Unless it is because we don’t have shoes on our hands and it’s a way to keep them warm?..
I usually sleep with one leg extended and the other completely bent . is it that my body reminds being a bird in a former life? or that I tend to keep one leg warm? or that I need that position to properly kick my wife during my sleep? or is it that I want to fool the monster that lies under my bed?
is it that I train during the night for the “stand on one leg eyes closed” test (btw lot of progress here!)
