50 Fun Facts About Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are native to which part of the world?

They range from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego; the hummingbird-like birds of the Old World are unrelated look-alikes.

Roughly how many hummingbird species are there?

That makes Trochilidae the third-largest bird family, after the tyrant flycatchers and the tanagers.

What is the smallest bird in the world?

About 5 to 6 cm long and under 2 grams, it lives only on Cuba, where it is called the zunzuncito.

The largest hummingbird, the giant hummingbird, weighs how much?

That is roughly twice the next-largest species; it has a 21.5 cm wingspan and a 23 cm body.

How fast do the smallest hummingbirds beat their wings while hovering?

The little woodstar holds the record; the largest species manage only about 12 a second.

Hummingbirds have the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of any what?

They burn the human equivalent of 150,000 calories a day, ten times a competing marathon runner.

In torpor, a hummingbird can slow its metabolic rate to what fraction of normal?

One Caribbean bird's body temperature fell from 40 to 18 °C, and its heart from over 1,000 beats a minute to as few as 50.

Which hummingbird migrates about 6,300 km each way between Alaska and Mexico?

It breeds farther north than any other species and must put up with the odd frost in Alaska and the Yukon.

Hummingbirds split from which sister group about 42 million years ago?

Perception of sweetness evolved after the split from those insect-eaters; both groups sit in the order Apodiformes.

The oldest known fossil hummingbird, Eurotrochilus, was found on which continent?

The 30-million-year-old bones sat unrecognised in a Stuttgart museum drawer until Gerald Mayr looked in 2004.

How do hummingbirds move on the ground?

Their legs are tiny and mainly for perching, preening and grabbing rivals' feathers in fights.

What is the iridescent throat patch of a male hummingbird called?

Its brilliance changes with the viewing angle; males of one Californian species tilt themselves toward the sun to show it off.

How many eggs does a hummingbird typically lay?

They are pea-sized and white, the smallest of any bird.

Hummingbird nests are commonly bound to a branch using what?

Lichens, moss and plant fibres finish a cup about 3.8 cm across; only the female builds and feeds.

The oldest known ruby-throated hummingbird, a banded bird, lived how long?

The average is 3 to 5 years, with most deaths in the first year; bee hummingbirds manage 7 to 10.

Ruby-throated hummingbirds are North America's most numerous species. Roughly how many are there?

Even so, its numbers fell 17% in the early 21st century; several western species have dropped far more.

Which country has the most hummingbird species, more than 160?

Ecuador has about 130, while the United States has fewer than 25 and Canada fewer than 10.

Some hillstar hummingbirds live at Andean altitudes up to how high?

One Metallura hummingbird in torpor at 3,800 metres let its body temperature fall to about 3 °C.

Which Old World birds resemble hummingbirds through convergent evolution but are unrelated?

The hummingbird hawk-moth of Eurasia does the same trick as an insect and is often mistaken for the bird.

Which species is the only bird with a beak longer than the rest of its body?

It has to preen with its feet, and it co-evolved with the long-tubed passionflower Passiflora mixta.

Hummingbird-pollinated flowers tend to be which colour?

They also lack scent and landing platforms and hold weak, sucrose-rich nectar, all of which discourages insects.

Studies of broad-tailed hummingbirds found they have how many colour-sensitive cone types?

The extra cone sees ultraviolet, letting them perceive 'non-spectral' colours such as ultraviolet-green that humans cannot.

The Ecuadorian hillstar sings at frequencies above what, beyond most birds' hearing?

Blue-throated hummingbirds also make ultrasonic clicks that may disrupt the flight of insects they hunt.

Which gene did hummingbirds lose, letting their flight muscles burn sugar directly?

Fructose-bisphosphatase 2 vanished around 35 million years ago, about when hovering began; sugar can power flight within 30 to 45 minutes of drinking.

A migrating ruby-throated hummingbird can cross how much of the Gulf of Mexico nonstop?

It burns just 1 to 2 grams of fat doing so, about what a human uses climbing 15 metres.

The highest hummingbird heart rate ever measured was about how many beats per minute?

It came from a blue-throated hummingbird, which was also breathing 250 times a minute at rest.

A nectar-drinking hummingbird may take in how much water a day relative to its body weight?

Its kidneys ramp filtration up to match, then drop it to zero during overnight torpor to save water.

Which hummingbird is the official city bird of Vancouver and lives year-round in Seattle?

It has pushed north since the 1960s thanks to feeders, eucalyptus plantings and milder winters, tolerating snow and frost.

What is the hormone that helps rouse a hummingbird from torpor?

Subordinate birds without territories tend to spend longer in torpor than dominant ones.

Wind-tunnel studies show hummingbird wings trace what shape while hovering?

The downstroke gives 75% of the lift and the upstroke 25%, which is why they can hover and fly backwards.

In body lengths, the Alaska-to-Mexico trip of the smallest long-distance migrant hummingbird equals about how many?

That beats the Arctic tern's 51 million body lengths, even though the tern flies nearly three times as far.

Roughly what share of its own weight in nectar does a hummingbird drink each day?

If the nectar is only 25% sugar, that rises to twice its body weight; insects supply the protein.

How does a hummingbird's tongue actually take up its food?

High-speed film showed the forked tongue springing open and closing around nectar up to 20 times a second, 14 milliseconds a lick.

How many licks per second can a hummingbird's tongue manage?

Each lick lasts about 14 milliseconds, with the tongue's side-tubes closing round the nectar.

What sugar concentration is the common recipe for a hummingbird feeder?

Birds defend feeders more fiercely at 35%; honey should never be used because it spoils fast when diluted, and red dye is unnecessary.

Why should honey not be used in hummingbird feeders?

Plain white sugar and water is the safe recipe, and colouring is unnecessary.

Which Aztec god of war is often depicted as a hummingbird?

Aztecs wore hummingbird talismans and believed fallen warriors were reborn as hummingbirds.

Aztecs wore hummingbird talismans as emblems of what?

The sharp beaks were read as weapons, and fallen warriors were believed to be reborn as the birds.

A hummingbird is among the giant figures of which ancient Peruvian geoglyphs?

It shares the desert with a monkey, a spider and a condor, all etched into the pampa.

Which nation, 'the land of the hummingbird', puts one on its coat of arms, coin and airline?

It also awards a Hummingbird Medal for significant contributions to the country.

The red-billed streamertail, or 'doctor bird', is the national bird of which country?

Linnaeus described it in 1758 from a Jamaican natural history published two years earlier.

How many major clades do molecular studies divide hummingbirds into?

Topazes, hermits, mangoes, coquettes, brilliants, the giant hummingbird, mountaingems, bees and emeralds.

Which two hummingbird species have been declared extinct?

As of 2026, 21 more are endangered or critically endangered and some 255 species are declining.

Male hummingbirds' courtship dives from about 30 metres reach roughly what speed?

Ordinary top flight speed is over 15 m/s; some males also make sounds with their tail feathers during the dive.

Bee hummingbird eggs are about the size of what?

The female lays two; she weighs 2.6 g and is slightly bigger than the 1.95 g male.

Hummingbirds are the smallest what?

As birds they are avian theropod dinosaurs; the bee hummingbird is also the smallest warm-blooded vertebrate.

Roughly how long after hatching do hummingbird chicks fledge?

The two pea-sized eggs are incubated for two to three weeks and the chicks are fed only by regurgitation from the mother.

What is the scientific family name of the hummingbirds?

The family runs from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, though most species live in Central and South America.

The hummingbird hawk-moths that are often mistaken for the birds live only in which region?

Their hovering, feeding style is a case of convergent evolution rather than any relationship to the birds.

The roughly 375 hummingbird species are divided among about how many genera?

Names like sun gem, fairy, woodstar, sapphire and sylph reflect the exotic plumage of many of them.