50 free Hummingbird trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Hummingbirds are the smallest birds alive and among the most extreme animals of any size, and this quiz gets into the numbers: roughly 375 species, wingbeats up to 99 a second, a heart that can hit 1,260 beats a minute, a metabolism that drops to a fifteenth of normal in overnight torpor, and a rufous hummingbird migration from Alaska to Mexico that, measured in body lengths, beats the Arctic tern's. It also covers how they actually work: the figure-of-eight wingstroke that gives lift on the way up as well as down, the forked tongue that pumps nectar rather than sipping it by capillary action, the fourth colour cone that lets them see into the ultraviolet, why they never walk, why they cannot survive on nectar alone, and what to put in a feeder (and not to). Then the birds themselves and their place in culture: Cuba's bee hummingbird, the sword-bill whose beak is longer than its body, Jamaica's doctor bird, the ruby-throat's Gulf crossing, Anna's hummingbird wintering in Vancouver, the Aztec war god Huitzilopochtli and the Nazca Lines. Easy questions ask where hummingbirds live and what they eat; hard ones want licks per second, gene names and clade counts. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on hummingbirds and the species involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Our Birds quiz goes wider.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hummingbirds are native to which part of the world?
The Americas
They range from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego; the hummingbird-like birds of the Old World are unrelated look-alikes.
Q 02Roughly how many hummingbird species are there?
About 375
That makes Trochilidae the third-largest bird family, after the tyrant flycatchers and the tanagers.
Q 03What is the smallest bird in the world?
The bee hummingbird
About 5 to 6 cm long and under 2 grams, it lives only on Cuba, where it is called the zunzuncito.
Q 04The largest hummingbird, the giant hummingbird, weighs how much?
17 to 31 grams
That is roughly twice the next-largest species; it has a 21.5 cm wingspan and a 23 cm body.
Q 05How fast do the smallest hummingbirds beat their wings while hovering?
Up to 99 beats per second
The little woodstar holds the record; the largest species manage only about 12 a second.
Q 06Hummingbirds have the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of any what?
Warm-blooded animal
They burn the human equivalent of 150,000 calories a day, ten times a competing marathon runner.
Q 07In torpor, a hummingbird can slow its metabolic rate to what fraction of normal?
One fifteenth
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.
Q 08Which hummingbird migrates about 6,300 km each way between Alaska and Mexico?
The rufous
It breeds farther north than any other species and must put up with the odd frost in Alaska and the Yukon.
Q 09Hummingbirds split from which sister group about 42 million years ago?
Swifts and treeswifts
Perception of sweetness evolved after the split from those insect-eaters; both groups sit in the order Apodiformes.
Q 10The oldest known fossil hummingbird, Eurotrochilus, was found on which continent?
Europe
The 30-million-year-old bones sat unrecognised in a Stuttgart museum drawer until Gerald Mayr looked in 2004.
Q 11How do hummingbirds move on the ground?
They shuffle sideways, never walking
Their legs are tiny and mainly for perching, preening and grabbing rivals' feathers in fights.
Q 12What is the iridescent throat patch of a male hummingbird called?
A gorget
Its brilliance changes with the viewing angle; males of one Californian species tilt themselves toward the sun to show it off.
Q 13How many eggs does a hummingbird typically lay?
Two
They are pea-sized and white, the smallest of any bird.
Hummingbird nests are commonly bound to a branch using what?
Q 21Hummingbird-pollinated flowers tend to be which colour?
Red
They also lack scent and landing platforms and hold weak, sucrose-rich nectar, all of which discourages insects.
Q 22Studies of broad-tailed hummingbirds found they have how many colour-sensitive cone types?
Four
The extra cone sees ultraviolet, letting them perceive 'non-spectral' colours such as ultraviolet-green that humans cannot.
Q 23The Ecuadorian hillstar sings at frequencies above what, beyond most birds' hearing?
10 kHz
Blue-throated hummingbirds also make ultrasonic clicks that may disrupt the flight of insects they hunt.
Spider webs
Lichens, moss and plant fibres finish a cup about 3.8 cm across; only the female builds and feeds.
Q 15The oldest known ruby-throated hummingbird, a banded bird, lived how long?
9 years and 2 months
The average is 3 to 5 years, with most deaths in the first year; bee hummingbirds manage 7 to 10.
Q 16Ruby-throated hummingbirds are North America's most numerous species. Roughly how many are there?
34,000,000
Even so, its numbers fell 17% in the early 21st century; several western species have dropped far more.
Q 17Which country has the most hummingbird species, more than 160?
Colombia
Ecuador has about 130, while the United States has fewer than 25 and Canada fewer than 10.
Q 18Some hillstar hummingbirds live at Andean altitudes up to how high?
5,200 m
One Metallura hummingbird in torpor at 3,800 metres let its body temperature fall to about 3 °C.
Q 19Which Old World birds resemble hummingbirds through convergent evolution but are unrelated?
Sunbirds
The hummingbird hawk-moth of Eurasia does the same trick as an insect and is often mistaken for the bird.
Q 20Which species is the only bird with a beak longer than the rest of its body?
The sword-billed hummingbird
It has to preen with its feet, and it co-evolved with the long-tubed passionflower Passiflora mixta.
Q 24Which gene did hummingbirds lose, letting their flight muscles burn sugar directly?
FBP2
Fructose-bisphosphatase 2 vanished around 35 million years ago, about when hovering began; sugar can power flight within 30 to 45 minutes of drinking.
Q 25A migrating ruby-throated hummingbird can cross how much of the Gulf of Mexico nonstop?
About 800 km
It burns just 1 to 2 grams of fat doing so, about what a human uses climbing 15 metres.
Q 26The highest hummingbird heart rate ever measured was about how many beats per minute?
1,260
It came from a blue-throated hummingbird, which was also breathing 250 times a minute at rest.
Q 27A nectar-drinking hummingbird may take in how much water a day relative to its body weight?
Five times
Its kidneys ramp filtration up to match, then drop it to zero during overnight torpor to save water.
Q 28Which hummingbird is the official city bird of Vancouver and lives year-round in Seattle?
Anna's
It has pushed north since the 1960s thanks to feeders, eucalyptus plantings and milder winters, tolerating snow and frost.
Q 29What is the hormone that helps rouse a hummingbird from torpor?
Corticosterone
Subordinate birds without territories tend to spend longer in torpor than dominant ones.
Q 30Wind-tunnel studies show hummingbird wings trace what shape while hovering?
A figure of eight
The downstroke gives 75% of the lift and the upstroke 25%, which is why they can hover and fly backwards.