{"id":107310,"date":"2024-09-26T21:50:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=107310"},"modified":"2024-09-26T21:50:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:50:22","slug":"hummingbirds-thrive-on-an-extreme-lifestyle-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=107310","title":{"rendered":"Hummingbirds thrive on an extreme lifestyle. Here\u2019s how."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/sapphire-800x523.jpg\" alt=\"Golden-Tailed Sapphire Hummingbird about to extract nectar from a yellow and red flower\"\/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/sapphire.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"1400\" data-width=\"2140\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Hummingbirds\u2014like this golden-tailed sapphire from South America\u2014draw the eye with their bright colors and busy, hovering flight. Biologists are drawn to understand the suite of adaptations they have evolved to survive extreme lifestyles.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 22:single\/related:beed0de630789e115771b582802aaec5 --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>Everyone loves to watch hummingbirds\u2014tiny, brightly colored blurs that dart about, hovering at flowers and pugnaciously defending their ownership of a feeder.<\/p>\n<p>But to the scientists who study them, hummingbirds offer much more than an entertaining spectacle. Their small size and blazing metabolism mean they live life on a knife-edge, sometimes needing to shut down their bodies almost completely just to conserve enough energy to survive the night\u2014or to migrate thousands of miles, at times across open ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Their nectar-rich diet leads to blood-sugar levels that would put a person in a coma. And their zipping, zooming flight sometimes generates g-forces high enough to make a fighter pilot black out. The more researchers look, the more surprises lurk within those tiny bodies, the smallest in the avian world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re the only bird in the world that can fly upside down and backwards,\u201d says <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildlifegenetichealth.org\/about-us\/holly-ernest\/\">Holly Ernest<\/a>, a conservation ecologist with the University of Wyoming. \u201cThey drink pure sugar and don\u2019t die of diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ernest is one of a small number of researchers studying how hummingbirds cope with the extreme demands of their lifestyles. Here\u2019s some of what scientists have learned about the unique adaptations of hummingbirds.<\/p>\n<h2>Put in the work<\/h2>\n<p>For years, most researchers had assumed that hummingbirds spent only about 30 percent of their day engaged in the energy-intensive business of flitting from flower to flower and guzzling nectar, while resting most of the other time. But when physiological ecologist <a href=\"https:\/\/anushashankar.weebly.com\/\">Anusha Shankar<\/a> looked closely, she found they\u2019re often working a lot harder than that.<\/p>\n<p>Shankar, now of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Hyderabad, India, tried to figure out how broad-billed hummingbirds in Southern Arizona spend their days. Using a mix of experimental methods, she measured the birds\u2019 metabolic rate during various activities and estimated their total daily energy expenditure. Adding in previous published data, Shankar was able to calculate the per-minute energy cost of perching, flying and hovering\u2014basically a bird\u2019s three options for spending time.<\/p>\n<p>She then inferred how much time the birds must have spent feeding versus perching over the course of a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe ended up finding that it\u2019s super variable,\u201d Shankar says. During the early part of the summer when flowers are abundant, birds could meet their daily energy needs with as little as a few hours of feeding, spending as much as 70 percent of the day just perching, she found. But when flowers became scarcer after the arrival of the summer monsoon rains, birds at one site <a href=\"https:\/\/besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/1365-2435.13404\">perched just 20 percent of the time and used the rest of the day for feeding<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s 13 hours a day!\u201d Shankar says. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I can spend 13 hours a day running. I don\u2019t know how they do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Seriously chill<\/h2>\n<p>Hummingbirds have a trick to help them eke out their energy reserves: When a bird is in danger of running out of energy, it may go torpid at night, dropping its body temperature nearly to that of the surrounding air\u2014sometimes just a few degrees above freezing. While in torpor, the bird appears almost comatose, unable to respond quickly to stimuli, and breathing only intermittently. The strategy can save up to 95 percent of hourly metabolic costs during cold nights, Shankar has calculated. That can be essential after days when a bird has fed less than usual, such as after a thunderstorm. It also helps birds save energy to pack on fat before migration.<\/p>\n<p>Shankar is now studying which parts of their physiology hummingbirds prioritize during torpor, by looking to see which gene products they can\u2019t do without. \u201cIf you\u2019re a hummingbird functioning at 10 percent of your normal metabolism, what is that 10 percent that\u2019s keeping you alive?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"image shortcode-img center large\" style=\"width:100%\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/torpor.jpg\" class=\"enlarge\" data-height=\"1500\" data-width=\"2000\" alt=\"Many hummingbirds, such as this one, can enter a state of torpor, a form of hibernation in which they let their body temperature drop to near that of the air. Torpor saves the birds energy\u2014especially important at night\u2014but arousing from it can take many minutes and leave the birds vulnerable.\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Many hummingbirds, such as this one, can enter a state of torpor, a form of hibernation in which they let their body temperature drop to near that of the air. Torpor saves the birds energy\u2014especially important at night\u2014but arousing from it can take many minutes and leave the birds vulnerable.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/torpor-640x480.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/torpor-1280x960.jpg 2x\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/torpor.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"1500\" data-width=\"2000\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Many hummingbirds, such as this one, can enter a state of torpor, a form of hibernation in which they let their body temperature drop to near that of the air. Torpor saves the birds energy\u2014especially important at night\u2014but arousing from it can take many minutes and leave the birds vulnerable.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2024\/09\/hummingbirds-thrive-on-an-extreme-lifestyle-heres-how\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ Hummingbirds\u2014like this golden-tailed sapphire from South America\u2014draw the eye with their bright colors and busy, hovering flight. Biologists are drawn to understand the suite of adaptations they have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=107310\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}