A startling video of a red liquid dripping down a flamingo's face and into the mouth of its young resurfaced and went viral on the Reddit forum "Interesting as F**k," amassing more than 12,000 votes.
A zoomed-in shot shows one flamingo's beak on top of another flamingo's head. A bright red liquid ran down the second flamingo's face and into the young flamingo's mouth. This video dates back to 2018, though it has occasionally been reshared throughout the years.
"Flamingos make crop milk in their guts," wrote u/Yachisaorick—the Redditor who shared the post. "It's red, because, crab diet. They regurgitate this to young usually one parent at a time."
According to The Spruce, crop milk is high in fat and protein, and some bird species feed it to their babies shortly after they hatch.
"Crop milk is only fed to young birds for a few days until they are able to digest other foods, and parent birds may gradually mix adult food in with the young birds' diet to wean them off crop milk," the piece stated.
The outlet reported that flamingos specifically take about two months to develop enough to eat mature food.
"While they are eating crop milk, however, they may still practice feeding as they learn how to use their bills, but they are not ingesting enough mature food to meet their nutritional needs," the article read.
Though some viewers were shocked, many found the video interesting.
"The dead-eye stare doesn't help," a commenter wrote. "I felt like I could hear his silent screams with a beak impaled in his skull."
Another thanked u/Yachisaorick for the explanation, noting that they thought the video was much more graphic than a bird being fed.
"I was thinking that what it looks like is one flamingo stabbing its beak into the living brain of another flamingo, and the liquid running down the poor bird's face is a mix of blood and brain matter," they wrote. "I mean that's exactly what it looks like."
Others shared that they were also confused until they read u/Yachisaorick's description.
"This changed everything I've thought about flamingos, until I read the explanation," a viewer wrote. "Phew, I thought something dark was happening here."
Other Reddit posts have captivated Internet users, including a post that a Reddit user shared showing off his invention for chips and dip.
The bowl was designed to keep dip on a chip, rather than allowing it to slide off.
A video of children from the 1960s predicting what life would be like in the year 2000 also went viral after internet users found many of these guesses came true.
One business owner's response to a dissatisfied customer's review on Google also went viral on the Reddit forum "Facepalm."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Catherine Ferris is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting for the U.S. Trends Team. She ... Read more
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