But how did they get that way?
Look at this baller bird:
This blue-eared hummingbird looks pretty neat, but what it can do is far more impressive.
Brockswood / Getty Images
Hummingbirds flap their wings real fast. And they do it differently than other birds.
They are most famous for their mode of flight, which allows them to flap their wings over 60 times per second in an innovative figure-eight motion. This motion requires a uniquely-shaped humerus bone, and it requires a higher metabolic rate than nearly any other creature on Earth.
Discovery / Via youtube.com
And their beaks are a perfect match for the specific flowers they feed on.
The birds' beaks are an ideal shape for extracting nectar from the species of flower they feed on. This adaptation is clearly good for the bird (who gets to eat delicious sugary nectar), and it also helps the plant (which uses the bird as a vessel to transport its pollen to other plants for fertilization and reproduction).
Since the birds are uniquely suited to specific plants, many different species of hummingbirds can co-exist in the same areas if there are enough flowering plants.
Dorling Kindersley / Getty Images
No comments:
Post a Comment