Interesting Facts – Hummingbirds sometimes seem otherworldly compared to other feathered friends. They see more colors than the human eye does, and can even enter a deathlike state to survive frigid winter nights. But their most remarkable ability has to do with their incredibly fast-moving wings, with the fastest flapping upwards of 80 times per second.

Thanks to those incredible appendages, hummingbirds can hover — and they’re the only species of bird that can do so on their own for a sustained period of time.

Hummingbirds can also move up, down, left, right, forward, and yes, even backward (another unique ability), reaching speeds of 75 miles per hour. According to Audubon, the hummingbird also has really sensitive “brakes,” and can switch from flying 25 miles per hour to coming to a dead stop within the length of a human index finger.

The world’s smallest bird is the bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), which can only be found in Cuba. This pint-sized hummingbird is only 2.25 inches long, and weighs around 2 grams — about the weight of a dime.

How are hummingbirds such aerial aces? Well, most birds achieve lift only when flapping their wings down, but hummingbirds swish their wings in a side-to-side, figure-eight pattern, which is more characteristic of an insect than a bird (the feat has earned them the excellent nickname “hummingbugs”).

Although hummingbirds have evolved to use their wing muscles efficiently, their tiny bodies have an incredibly high metabolism, which means the creatures must constantly hunt for food to survive. Remarkably, hummingbirds can drain up to 10 drops of nectar from a flower in 15 milliseconds (or 1/100th of a second).

SF Source Interesting Facts Mar 2024