Hummingbirds are beautiful, fascinating, engineering marvels. Here are some interesting facts about hummingbird classification, natural history, anatomy, and metabolism.

Each spring in many parts of North America, as the snow melts and the days get longer, we eagerly await the return of hummingbirds. Hummingbird feeders are retrieved from storage, washed, and filled with nectar. We hang them outside in a strategic location and then we watch and wait.

There are about 330 different species of hummingbirds. Most of them live and remain in Central and South America, never venturing any further north – only 16 species breed in North America. Here are more interesting facts about hummingbirds:

• Hummingbirds occur only in the Americas.
• Scientists divide the hummingbirds up into two subfamilies: typical hummingbirds and hermit hummingbirds. They are thought to be closely related to swifts.
• The smallest hummingbird, the Bee Hummingbird, weighs a little under two grams. The largest, the Giant Hummingbird, weighs 21 to 23 grams.
• Hummingbirds eat plant nectar, plant pollen, and insects – but their diet is 90 percent nectar.
• Like bees, hummingbirds carry pollen from one plant to another while they are feeding, thus playing an important role in plant pollination. Each bird visits between one and two thousand blossoms each day.
• Hummingbirds can see ultraviolet light, which may enable them to identify certain varieties of plant.
• Though we generally see them in flight, hummingbirds perch for most of their lives.
• On average, hummingbird wings beat about 80 times each second, but in some species 200 beats a second has been documented.
• A hummingbird breathes 300 to 500 times each minute while active.
• The hummingbird heart is about 20 percent of the bird’s body volume. It beats about 500 times a minute. Heartbeats vary between different species and during different activities, and range from 30 to 1200 beats a minute.
• Hummingbirds sometimes enter a state of torpor, usually during the night when they are not feeding. In torpor, metabolism slows down saving up to 60 percent of the bird’s available energy.
• After feeding and doubling its weight,, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird flies nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico during migration. The flight takes about 20 hours.

Other articles about hummingbirds:

Hummingbird Nests

Hummingbirds are Migrating

Sources for this article:

Klesius, Michael. “Flight of Fancy.” National Geographic. Jan 2007, p. 114-129

Perrins, Christopher ed. Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2003

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