Top 25 Amazing Humming Bird Facts | Amazing Facts 4U
- There are 320 different species of humming birds found throughout America. The smallest of all is the tiny bee humming bird, Mellsuga helenae. They are among the tiniest of birds.
- Each species of hummingbird makes a different humming sound, determined by the number of wing beats per second.
- They have a short, high-pitched squeaky call.
- Amazingly humming birds can’t walk as their feet are weak and they weigh less than a penny.
- Amazing fact is that a humming bird’s brain is 4.2% of its body weight, the largest proportion in the bird kingdom.
- Male hummingbirds are reported to have achieved amazing speeds of almost 400 body lengths per second when swooping in an effort to impress females.
- Amazing fact is that a humming bird flaps its wings up to 90 times in one second or over 5000 times a minute. Each species of hummingbird makes a different humming sound, determined by the number of wing beats per second.
- During courtship, the wingtips of the ruby-throated hummingbird beats amazingly up to 200 times per second, as opposed to the usual wing beat of 90 times per second.
- Amazingly hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly both forward and backwards. They can also hover in mid-air, fly sideways and even upside-down.
- It’s amazing that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards .
- The hummingbird needs to eat twice its bodyweight in food every day, and to do so they must visit hundreds of flowers daily. Amazingly a hummingbird will visit an average of 1,000 flowers per day for nectar.
- Their super fast wing beats use up a lot of energy, so they spend most of the day sitting around resting.
- Hummingbirds are very smart and they can amazingly remember every flower they have been to, and how long it will take a flower to refill.
- Hummingbirds can hear better than humans and can see farther than humans.
- Amazingly hummingbirds can see ultraviolet light.
- Hummingbirds have little to no sense of smell.
- A hummingbird’s tongue is grooved like the shape of a “W”. They have tiny hairs on the tip of the tongue to help lap up nectar.
- Hummingbirds do not drink though their beaks like a straw. They lap up nectar with their tongues.
- A hummingbird’s heart amazingly beats up to 1,260 times per minute during action. Even at rest , it beats about 250 times per minute.
- The hummingbird’s body temperature is around 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Despite their tiny size, the ruby-throated hummingbird makes a remarkable annual migration, flying over 3000 km from the eastern USA, crossing over 1000km of the Gulf of Mexico in a single journey to winter in Central America.
- The ruby-throated hummingbird has only approximately 940 feathers on its entire body.
- It’s amazing that when hummingbirds sleep at night, they go into a hibernation-like state called torpor to conserve energy. The metabolic rate is one-fifteenth (1/15) of normal sleep. Heart rate can drop to as few as 50 beats per minute. The body temperature drops to as low as 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
- The male takes no responsibility in rearing the young and may find another mate after the first brood hatches.
- Fact is that it can take up to an hour for a hummingbird to fully recover from torpor. Torpor can be fatal to a weak hummingbird.
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