Is it a bird?
Is it a bee?
Perhaps it's a little of both.
A hummingbird.
Of course, a hummingbird isn't an insect,
but now biologists have discovered that insects such as bees
can unlock some enduring hummingbird mysteries.
Hummingbirds are warm blooded, hollow boned
and feather winged,
just like all birds.
But they stand out with an impressive list of features
and some extreme biology.
They're the smallest of birds.
One species measures just 5 cm from beak to tail.
But relative to its size,
the hummingbird has the largest brain of any bird
and it also has the largest heart of any animal
relative to its own body weight.
Its brain processes visual motion in a unique way.
Most animals' brains are tuned to detect motion from behind
better than other types of motion.
Hummingbirds sense movement equally in all directions.
This allows them to hover and fly with precision,
evade predators
and perform flamboyant mating displays
to impress females.
The hummingbird's heart is just as impressive,
capable of beating over 1,000 times a minute,
pumping blood to its enormous flight muscles
to power wings that can flap up to 80 times a second.
Most other flying birds beat their wings fewer than 5 times a second.
Hummingbirds burn a massive amount of energy
to sustain their rapid wing beat.
With the exception of insects, they have the fastest metabolism of any animal.
Every day, they need to consume half their weight in sugar.
They do this by pumping 10 drops of nectar out of a flower
every 15 milliseconds
with a tongue so long it coils up inside their head when it's retracted.
In the case of the sword build hummingbird,
that tongue is encased in the world's longest bird beak
relative to size.
Hummingbirds also require protein to survive.
So, they've become adept aerial hunters of tiny insects.
Their flying skills really set them apart.
Nearly a decade ago, biologists proved
that hummingbirds fly more like insects than like birds.
Just like dragonflies and bees,
they can hover for long periods, even flying backwards or upside down.
No other bird is capable of such aerial acrobatics.
Most birds flap their wings up and down,
generating their lift force on the downstroke of the wing,
but hummingbirds rotate their wings in a figure of eight motion.
This movement creates air currents
that generate lift from both the upstroke and the downstroke.
It allows them to hover and perform insect like maneuvers
despite having the same physiology as other birds.
Insect wings are flexible,
but the wings of a hummingbird are constrained by a skeleton.
So, they achieve insect like flight by rotating their shoulders 180 degrees.
Now, it's been found that hummingbirds are even more like insects
than we previously thought.
It was once believed that hummingbirds
had a better understanding of the world than lowly insects,
but comparing hummingbirds to bees
has resulted in an extraordinary discovery.
The hummingbird uses the same sort of intelligence as a bee
to navigate its complex world of shape and color.
Experiments show that both animals can actually remember
the locations of the most rewarding, nectar-rich flowers
in a field filled with blooms.
Or a tree laden with blossom.
And once they find them,
they devise well-defined circuits
to repeatedly visit these flowers in virtually the same order.
They even take the shortest routes to save flying time and energy.
Birds and bees took separate evolutionary paths
at least 600 million years ago.
Birds flew up the evolutionary ladder
while insects hovered on the lower rungs.
But despite their place,
insects like bees may hold the key to our understanding
of some of the hummingbird's most extraordinary behavior.
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