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

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·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.

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

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