According to the legends of the ancient city of Teotihuacan, located in Mexico, a hummingbird is the soul of a dead warrior. People for many centuries believed in this and guarded hummingbirds. Interesting facts that briefly talk about this miniature creation are collected in this article. It will be interesting for kids and their parents to find out more about the bird.
On the brink of extinction
Few people know, but the skins of beautiful hummingbirds are in great demand in the fashion industry. Various jewelry is made from them, and exquisite ladies spare no money to get such a product. Over the past decades, small hummingbirds have declined sharply in the population, because people who want to get a lot of money exterminate birds in incredible quantities. We offer to consider 10 more interesting facts about hummingbirds.
Where do the birds live?
At first glance, it seems that these creatures are completely unfit for life. I want to take care of them, to shelter from all winds and rains. In fact, it is the most enduring creation of a hummingbird - a bird, interesting facts about which are presented in this article. And here is the first of them: the baby is so adapted to any climatic conditions that it is found in Argentina, Arizona, the coast of Nova Scotia and even in Alaska itself! But, despite the appearance of wide distribution, hummingbirds live only in the territories of the New World.
Only once ocher hummingbird was seen in Russia. This happened in 1976, and the baby was found on Ratmanov Island, which is located in the Bering Strait.
Dimensions
Today we will tell you the most interesting facts about hummingbirds. Many mistakenly assume that this bird exists in a single form and has a miniature shape. However, there are 300 species in total! Among them, the smallest is a hummingbird-bee. It weighs no more than one and a half grams, and its size, along with its tail and beak, is on average five centimeters, there are giant individuals that have grown up to seven!
There are quite large sizes of hummingbirds, which the language does not turn so to speak. This is a gigantic species, reaching a size of 21.6 centimeters.
On average, hummingbirds live for nine years. Of these, most of the time they spend in the air, eating.
Glutton
Since we are talking today about interesting facts about the hummingbird, it is worth mentioning about its very healthy appetite. A small creature loves to eat, and he needs an incredible amount of food. For 16 hours of wakefulness, the hummingbird drinks about 120 times and eats the amount of food that is twice its own weight! They feed on the fly, hovering over a flower. It was believed that the baby’s diet consists only of flower nectar. However, as it became known relatively recently, most of the menu consists of small insects living in flowers.
A lot of food is needed for a small creature in order to maintain a stable body temperature and help incredibly fast metabolism.
Little bird with a huge heart
Speaking of a big heart, they do not mean her kindness and generosity! Hummingbird heart is really very large, compared to the total size. The volume of a vital organ is three times that of an insatiable stomach. The heart takes half of the already small little crumbs. But nature when creating the feathered was not mistaken, but provided for everything. These birds are very active, restless and nimble, which is why they need a good, high-quality "motor". It is also needed to help maintain a fast metabolism. It is worth noting that there are much more red blood bodies in the body of the described creature than other representatives of the feathered world.
Counting beats per minute
Today we are interested in the hummingbird bird, interesting facts about it. Speaking about the heart of this crumbs, we wrote about its size. But not only this body is famous for its volume. The heart of a feathered creature beats at a frequency of five hundred beats per minute, and this is when it is at rest. If she fights or flees from the enemy, then the muscle develops incredible speed and can be reduced to 1200 times per minute! Over the nine years of life, the “motor” is reduced about 4.5 billion times, which is twice the number of contractions of the human heart in seventy years.
Flight speed
Considering interesting facts about hummingbirds, do not omit such an important point as the speed of this baby. Small species are rather agile, maneuverable, and they cannot be caught like a butterfly, because the maximum speed of the bird is about eighty kilometers per hour. They make a buzzing sound, like insects, due to the number of flapping wings, and they are from eighty to a hundred per second. It is worth noting that large species of the described birds can flap their wings only 8-10 times during the same time.
Thanks to the flight speed and the number of flapping wings of a hummingbird over a flower, it resembles a frozen figurine, and the outlines of its wings are completely invisible. By the way, this bird is one of a kind, endowed with the gift of flying "in reverse" and sideways. Amazing right?
Brave creature
Today's topic is interesting facts about hummingbirds. This small and completely harmless at first glance bird is a real brave man. Protecting its nest and offspring, and sometimes itself, it becomes a thunderstorm predator. The baby menacingly rushes not only at representatives of a kind, but also at large birds, which with their beak can completely swallow it. Nobody expects such courage from her, and she is nimble, like a hula. Hulking formidable birds simply do not have time to keep track of her, and she, taking this opportunity, continues to confuse and chase away a large enemy. Not every sweet and small creature is endowed with such a character and courage as the smallest representative of the feathered genus, but this deserves respect.
Perfect grip
With a more detailed study of hummingbirds, scientists installed a miniature camera in its habitat that can capture the fastest moments. Using this observation eye, new interesting facts about hummingbirds were revealed. The baby, making a pique, developed such a speed that it allowed her to fly a distance equal to four hundred of her hulls in one second. If you compare the speed and body length of the bird, you can make incredible conclusions: the ratio of these parameters is much higher than that of the space shuttle passing through the dense layers of the atmosphere and the jet fighter, which has fast and the furious! But that is not all. At the crucial moment of overcoming the peak, the baby showed such inhibition that one can envy. Such a sharp and accurate “brake” is not endowed with any conqueror of airspace from the animal world and created by man.
The female is responsible for the offspring
Hummingbirds do not get along together and that is why they never create pairs. Males are not endowed with parental instincts at all, and chicks are not at all interested in them. Few creatures add up all obligations to a woman, including raising offspring. Hummingbird female is an independent and self-sufficient representative of the fair sex, she does not need the help of a male. Itself will pop a nest of natural fluff, blades of grass, hang it on the foliage, or glue it with saliva to the rock. There she will lay two white testicles, in rare cases - one. She will take care of him for 14-19 days. When a naked, small and defenseless chick hatches into the light, she will feed him herself, again without the help of a male. Hummingbird is a good, caring mother.
What is a Hummingbird?
Considering interesting facts about hummingbirds, I want to mention that the name of a small bird is popular. A musical group from St. Petersburg is named after her, although the baby does not know how to sing beautifully, such as a nightingale. Also named after her is a pistol created by designer Franz Pfannlem, a kayak of German origin with a unique skeleton and a hybrid aerostat.
Today the most interesting facts about hummingbirds were presented for review. We hope that this article was interesting not only to young readers, but also to people of the older generation.