The blue-footed boobies It's always amazing how resourceful spoils nature's creatures with features, shapes and colors that would do credit to any artist highest honor. And yet like nothing in nature happens by chance in, even if it sometimes seems.
For example, the blue-footed booby has a special feature, and those are his feet. His name is a most striking hallmarks for him! It is a tropical sea bird whose feet shine in bright blue, which in itself is unusual. But with their help he waddles also seems like a clumsy fool around. Both have the waddling and the blue color of his feet on a vital benefit to the animal.
Some large as a goose, the females are slightly larger and heavier, puts our boobies a very strange courtship of the day. It is quite complex and includes many rituals. With his waddling gait, the male struts in front of the nest and down and puts his feet on display. It emphasizes its course even more than usual, beats its wings and makes the female small gifts in the form of nesting material.
shows On landing, the male to the female soles of his feet, then the flash of light in the sun. This is his way to greet the female on the ground.
Once "for cause" is, both animals lift their beaks straight up, then rotate the top of their wings forward. The male utters piercing whistles and the female is thin moaning sounds.
What criteria now a female she males? Play an important role in courtship behavior, we guessed it, the blue feet of the males. Females prefer males with strong blue-dyed feet! They despise the other hand, males whose feet just look dull gray blue. The intense blue color of the feet shows the female, that the male has no food problems of power and energy and has therefore also good for the food that is breeding can provide. When an animal fasted only two days must be, is already significantly decreased the blue color of the feet. Not the most beautiful drake So the favorite, but the bluest of the feet is chosen to partner.
But even remain after the successful partner selection for the blue feet of the female advantage and so they react after laying eggs yet to color changes. For if the partner loses its color after the first egg laying, then put the females a much smaller second eggs than those females whose partners remain malnourished optimal.
Regardless of blue-footed boobies feeding their strongest nestling always preferred. When food is scarce, then this has a better chance of surviving than if the scanty food would be distributed to several young.
You can not leave it at that a "precautionary measure" matter rest, but is based on multi-strategic: To improve the food security is mainly hunted in the early morning and late afternoon separately. On the basis of sex and size differences namely, every family has specialized in a certain prey size. So they can share a wider range of prey.
What exactly get the booby their blue feet? The feet have leathery webbing, in which collagen fibers are arranged in a special way. These fibers cause interference phenomena, and as a result, the light waves are superimposed so that only the blue spectral range is optimally reflected. At the same time, large amounts of stored carotenoids, which must be ingested continually re: Without carotenoids not an optimal interference and without it no light Blue color!
The benefit of the waddling gait of the courtship has been described. Blue-footed boobies, due to their foot structure and body shape of their outstanding pilot and also excellent divers. For the benefits of flying and diving for the benefit of prey capture, they had forced their waddle take into account, the country makes it a little less mobile. But as we see, they have understood it well to turn their supposed biological disadvantage into an advantage for survival - an achievement of which we humans could learn a calm us.
How often we are even in our development over the need to have to make some lemonade from a lemon, so we can survive: the animals we demonstrate how to do it!
A full house and a nice party gabs on Saturday, 22:01:11 occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Cultural and Sports Club HSK Croatia Singen eV 
