Sometimes your anatomy is adapted to your environment perfectly. Hummingbirds are animals that fit that description. The way they obtain food through nectar and insects is an example of how they use their anatomy to fit into their surroundings. They way their beaks, wings and other anatomical structures are shaped to help them survive to the best of their abilities. Most Hummingbirds are about three to four inches in length. Hummingbirds are tiny in size which increases the speed rate of their flying. Female hummingbirds tend to be larger in size than the male hummingbirds. Hummingbirds have ten primary feathers on their wings used for aviation. The average Hummingbird flies up to 62 miles per hour with the help of their small size. To help them fly, a Hummingbird has a heavy …show more content…
built chest that is more than 25% of their body weight.They also have a large heart to help pump more oxygen to their muscle because they spent more than 90 percent of their time flying.They have a heartbeat of almost 72,000 heartbeats per hour. Their Flight pattern is often compared to insects like dragonflies instead of other birds. Hummingbirds have a high metabolism due to their diet. An ample of the diet of a hummingbird is flower nectar, tree sap, and insects.When nectar is sparse hummingbirds will often look for tree sap. Insects provide the fat and protein that hummingbirds can’t achieve with nectar. A healthy adult hummingbird eats at least several dozen insects each day. Nectar is the ideal source of Energy for hummingbirds because a large amount of sugar in nectar gives hummingbirds. Tree sap is a perfect alternative for nectar because it is also high in sucrose. The kind of flowers that hummingbirds go for are lengthy tubular blooms. Those type of flowers holds more nectar and easier for a hummingbird to obtain with their beaks.The beak of a hummingbird is longer than their body. The kinds of insects that hummingbirds eat are small beetles, true bugs, weevils, flies, gnats, mosquitoes. Their favorite insect food source is spiders. They tend to select insects small enough to be swallowed whole. Nectar is a mixture of different kinds of sugar and isn’t typically a good source of nutrients for hummingbirds. Hummingbirds can not only rely on nectar for a source of food that's why they ingest insect for protein. There is a certain reason why hummingbirds need so much food to survive.
If a hummingbird doesn't indulge in a sufficient amount of food it has a strong possibility of death the next day. To avoid death they go into torpor. Torpor is a hibernation that produces a low body temperature lasting from days to weeks. Their heart rate starts to slow down and so does their metabolism. An Hummingbirds eyesight is a necessity for finding their source of food. Hummingbirds have the ability to see binocularly and peripherally. Hummingbirds have many more rods and cones, which are photoreceptors.Their capable of seeing ultraviolet light, which is invisible to the human eye. The adaption of their eyes helps draw them to the flowers of which they get their nectar from. Hummingbirds and the flowers they consume nectar from has co-adapted over the years. Specific hummingbirds have differently shaped beaks that adapted to let them drink from a certain kind of flower. That certain type of flower is known as Ornithophilous flowers which tend to be the colors of red, orange, and bright pink and other noticeable colors.Ornithophilous flowers have evolved to produce nectar and prevent other animals from
stealing.
A never ending struggle for survival and revelation when everything is taken away finding what is left to care for. Father Benito captured the essence of Hummingbird and the conquered fate she endured. In the end Father Benito the same priest who listened from the beginning to the end respected and with his recordings on paper the memory of Hummingbird's song will never die as his thoughts fade into the night with a final thought, “His question was answered when he reminded himself that he had captured her word on paper and that her song would live on in Anahuac forever” (Limon 217). The final though of this book validated all that Hummingbird wanted which was her story to be heard. An emotional story griped with enticing character development
In Song of the Hummingbird by Gracie Limon, It’s clear by chapter three that Father Benito and Hummingbird are starting to reach an impasse. He could no longer hold his tongue “This woman who had a way of prying out thoughts and feeling of which he was not aware”. With her story of transgression, incest and murder her sin was to be forgiven in eyes of the lord, but she wanted Father Benito words. His thoughts conflicted, so he was surprised that the words he spoke were forgiveness. At this point, Hummingbird feels ready to start the next level of her story. I liked in the dialog that it express every insecurity Father Benito went through when saying he forgives her. To me, he seems that he can no longer stand to hear more like he wants to sing
The Song of the Hummingbird, written by Graciela Limon, is a novel telling the story of Huitzitzilin an Aztec survivor whose kingdom fell to ruin by her nation's blind reliance on God. The book features Huitzitzilin as the narrator of the story and Father Benito as a naive journalist of sorts. As the story begins, Father Benito meets Huitzitzilin while he’s taking confessions in the church. Through this transaction; Benito is told by the head of the church to take note of the history Huitzitzilin has to tell, while absolving her of her sins. As Benito begins to hear her story, his irritation and discomfort with hearing it becomes clear. He fidgets, buries his head in his hands, and at times even threatens to leave. The reasons for this comes from what Benito knows from history books and the teaching of his faith, Huitzitzilin begins to pick up on things as she tells her story. She uses this to mess with him at times and to distance him from the mindset that he’s just a tool for his god’s word. When the story draws to a conclusion, Benito sees Huitzitzilin story for what it is, he and his people are no different than hers, yet they treated them as savages.
The large ground finches have a higher curve while the medium ground finches have a smaller head and a tiny beak. The place in which the finches live is what changes their appearances and also the weather helps decide the appearance of these finches.
Hummingbirds are enjoyable and amusing to watch because they have quick speeds, and they fly straight, stop fast, and fly upside down and backwards with precision. In the book North American Wildlife, Marshall Cavendish (2011) states, “A hummingbird’s wings are connected only at the shoulder joint and thus can move in all directions, allowing the bird to hover while feeding” (p.109). The flapping of their wings imitates the sound of bees, which is how they got their nickname of hummers. In the book Birds of Michigan, Ted Black and Gregory Kennedy (2003) state,” weighing as much as a nickel, a hummingbird is capable of briefly achieving speeds of up to 62 miles per hour” (p.180).
The Puerto Rican Parrot is one of the endemic species in Puerto Rico, hence the name. The parrot is about eleven inches in height, and weighs around 9 ounces. It is a mostly green bird, with a red forehead and white rings around its eyes. Their iris is a brown color and their legs are yellow-tan. Both the males and the females have mainly green coloring, their primary flight feathers are dark blue. The feathers that are only seen during flight, are bright blue, and the feathers in the tail have a yello...
Peripheral vision is used amongst every species ranging from a deep-sea marine animal to a bird flying hundreds of feet above the ground. However, each species’ vision differs to some degree and also differentiates within the species itself. This can be due to various types of eye conditions.
Hummingbirds have evolved certain behavioural and physical traits which allows for them to be more energetically efficient, such as specialized storage and digestion adaptations, feeding and flying adaptations and breathing adaptation. Hummingbirds are extremely small and their muscles for flight are highly oxygen-dependent and require large amounts of energy. Hummingbirds are one of the smallest endotherms and any energetic output can be metabolically stressful. The hummingbirds’ small body size means that they have very little room for energy storage and therefore often endure energetic and metabolic stresses. They are the one of the oldest aves, dating back to some 33 million years ago and have evolved certain energy efficient adaptations that have allowed for them to live so long. These adaptations allow Hummingbirds to efficiently meet their energetic needs which in turn, allows for them to not only survive but also continue to evolve and expand their specific niches.
Regarding the finches on the islands, their beak mutations ranged from a beak made to crush and break through hard nuts to a small and soft beak that eats insects (Rands 2013). These mutations helped to further the understanding of the theory of evolution. The discovery of the many mutations that went on in just the small area of the Galapagos made scientist realize that there are still many new mutations that they have never encountered.
American Crows can reach a length between 17 to 21 inches, with a wingspan of 39 inches, while the Common Raven is a larger bird that has an average length of 24 inches (Burton et al. 2010; Marzluff et al, 2013). Both the American Crow and the Common Raven have black coloration, but their feathers and beaks differ. Common Ravens have a larger, stronger beak, a wedge-shaped tail, and spikey feathers on their throat. American Crows, on the other hand, have a smaller and less bulky bill, smooth throat feathers, and they have tail feathers that fan out instead of forming a wedge (Marzluff et al, 2013). The two birds have different styles of flying.
larger and heavier than the males. An average female (called a falcon) weighs a little over
For years studies and observations have been made on the relationship between body size and physical orientation of an animal. In 1847 Carl Bergmann was one of the first to do observations with this phenomenon (Dictionary of Theories 2002). Bergmann noticed that warm-blooded animals living at climates high in latitude are bigger in size than those living in climates of lower latitudes (Dictionary of Theories 2002). Research has shown there is a correlation of surface area to volume in animals that are located in different parts of the globe. Animals living in a cooler climate have a larger volume, but decreased surface area to retain as much body heat as possible. The inverse is true for animals living in warmer regions; these animals have a smaller volume and larger surface area to allow the body to cool efficiently (McNab 1971). Bergmann’s rule has brought valuable insight into the study of character traits and how we identify where animals originated. One example that I came across is with the Andean passerine bird, a study was done in 1991 by G. R. Graves. He noticed the size of ...
Alnut Kelber, Anna Balkenius, and Eric. J. Warrant studied the night-time vision of a nocturnal hawkmoth, Deilephila elpenor. They wanted to know if the hawkmoths can truly see colors at night, or if they are using other means to find the right kind of flowers to feed from. For example, humans cannot see colors at night and therefore have a harder time differentiating between objects using vision alone. However, a person could find food in a dark room using his or her other senses, such as smell or taste, or could rely on colorless vision to choose food based on its shape. The scientists tested a series of experiments to show that hawkmoths use color-vision at night, as opposed to reverting to their other senses like humans do.