yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

TIL: Hummingbirds Are the World's Hungriest Birds | Today I Learned


less than 1m read
·Nov 11, 2024

If you were to use energy as quickly as a hummingbird, you'd have to eat a fridge full of food or about 300 hamburgers every day in order to survive. They use energy so quickly as they fly, so, so fast. A lot of the flowers they feed on are really delicate, and if they were to perch on them, then they would pull the flower off. They have to hover in one place, which is really energy consuming. It's one of the most energetically expensive activities in the animal world, I think.

So, they use energy really, really quickly in order to survive. Everything about them is really tiny. The smallest hummingbird is like the weight of a dime, and the largest is 20 grams, which is maybe nine dimes stuck together. They don't have much room to store fat. If you were really heavy with fat, then you wouldn't be able to fly. So, they have to feed on nectar many, many, many times during the day.

If hummingbirds didn't have flowers to feed on, they would starve in as little as two hours. So, next time you need a snack, be thankful it's not a life-or-death situation.

All bees buzz, but bumblebees are one of the very few types of bees that actually take that buzzing sound and use it like a secret weapon to get pollen.

More Articles

View All
Dr. Anthony Fauci on a Covid-19 vaccine & reopening schools this fall | Homeroom with Sal
Hi everyone, welcome to today’s homeroom. We have a very exciting special conversation with Dr. Fauci coming in a few seconds. But I will make my standard announcement reminding everyone that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization. We can only exis…
Theoretical probability distribution example: tables | Probability & combinatorics
We’re told that a board game has players roll two three-sided dice. These exist, and actually, I looked it up; they do exist and they’re actually fascinating! And subtract the numbers showing on the faces. The game only looks at non-negative differences. …
Introduction to Middle school Earth and space science | Khan Academy
Hi everyone. Sal Khan here and I’m with Iman Howard, who is our manager for all of our STEM content on Khan Academy. And we wanted to welcome you to the Middle School Earth and Space Sciences course. Iman, why should folks be excited about this? So Middl…
The Origin of El Chapo | Narco Wars
[music playing] It was find everybody involved. Find them now. We knew there was an individual that was responsible for all the logistical movement of marijuana and then cocaine, but we weren’t sure who he was. So we raided house, after house, after hous…
Calculating height using energy | Modeling Energy | High School Physics | Khan Academy
So I have an uncompressed spring here, and this spring has a spring constant of 4 newtons per meter. Then, I take a 10 gram mass, a 10 gram ball, and I put it at the top of the spring. I push down to compress that spring by 10 centimeters. Let’s call that…
Capturing Death - What One Photographer Learned on Assignment | Exposure
How do you want to die? Is really the question. You know, what is the quality of your death? What is the quality of a good death? It is the thing that we’re most afraid of. You’re going to die. You will be no more. Who, whoever it is that you believe you …