STARTING A NEW SERIES-Dr..Humming Bird Says.......
Dr.Hummingbird will hum it’s words
of Financial Wisdom and will instinctively help to think every time it says or
asks on a topic…….Here’s something to know about this beautiful small bird…..
Hummingbirds are New World birds that constitute the
family Trochilidae. They are
among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm
(3–5 in) range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a
hummingbird, the 5-cm bee hummingbird, weighing less than about
2.5g.
They are known as hummingbirds because of the
humming sound created by their beating wings which flap at high frequencies
audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing flapping rates,
typically around 50 times per second, but possibly as high as 200 times per second,
allowing them also to fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h;
34 mph), backwards or upside down.
Hummingbirds have the highest metabolism of any homeothermic animal.To conserve energy when food is
scarce, they have the ability to go into a hibernation-like state (torpor) where their metabolic rate is slowed to 1/15th of its
normal rate.
With the exception of insects, hummingbirds while
in flight have the highest metabolism of all animals, a
necessity in order to support the rapid beating of their wings during hovering
and fast forward flight. Their heart rate can reach as high as
1,260 beats per minute, a rate once measured in a blue-throated
hummingbird, with a breathing rate of 250 breaths per
minute, even at rest. During flight, oxygen consumption per gram of muscle
tissue in a hummingbird is approximately 10 times higher than that seen for
elite human athletes.
Hummingbirds consume more than their own
weight in nectar each day, and to do so they must visit hundreds of flowers
daily. Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death and are
able to store just enough energy to survive overnight.
Hummingbirds are rare among vertebrates in
their ability to rapidly make use of ingested sugars to fuel energetically
expensive hovering flight, powering up to 100% of their metabolic needs with
the sugars they drink (in comparison, human athletes max out at around 30%). One
study
showed
that hummingbirds can use newly ingested sugars to fuel hovering flight within
30–45 minutes of consumption. These data suggest that hummingbirds are able to
oxidize sugar in flight muscles at rates high enough to satisfy their extreme
metabolic demands. By relying on newly ingested sugars to fuel flight,
hummingbirds can reserve their limited fat stores to sustain them overnight fasting or to power migratory
flights.
The dynamic range of metabolic rates in
hummingbirds
requires
a corresponding dynamic range in kidney function. The glomerulus is a cluster of
capillaries in the nephrons of the kidney that
removes certain substances from the blood, like a filtration mechanism. The
rate at which blood is processed is called the glomerular
filtration rate (GFR). Most often
these fluids are reabsorbed by the kidneys. GFR also slows when a bird is
undergoing water deprivation. The interruption of GFR is a survival and
physiological mechanism unique to hummingbirds.
Studies of hummingbirds' metabolisms are
relevant to the question of how a migrating ruby-throated
hummingbird can cross 800 km
(500 mi) of the Gulf of Mexico on a nonstop flight. This
hummingbird, like other birds preparing to migrate, stores fat as a fuel
reserve, thereby augmenting its weight by as much as 100% and hence increasing
potential flying time over open water.
Hummingbirds drink nectar, a sweet liquid inside certain flowers. Like bees, they
are able to assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat; they normally
reject flower types that produce nectar that is less than 10% sugar and prefer
those whose sugar content is higher. Nectar is a mixture of glucose, fructose, and sucrose, and is a poor
source of nutrients, so hummingbirds
meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. by preying on insects and spiders.
Hummingbird bill shapes vary dramatically, as
an adaptation for specialized feeding. Some species, such as hermits (Phaethornis spp.) have bills that are long
allowing them to probe deep into flowers that have a long corolla. Thornbills have short, sharp bills adapted for
feeding from flowers with short corollas and piercing the
bases of longer ones. The sicklebills' extremely decurved bills are adapted to
extracting nectar from the curved corollas of flowers in the family Gesneriaceae.
The bill of the fiery-tailed awlbill has an upturned tip,
as in the avocets. The male tooth-billed
hummingbird has barracuda-like
spikes at the tip of its long, straight bill.
The two halves of a hummingbird's bill have a
pronounced overlap, with the lower half (mandible) fitting tightly
inside the upper half (maxilla). When hummingbirds
feed on nectar, the bill is usually opened only slightly, allowing the tongue
to dart out and into the interior of flowers. Hummingbird bill sizes range from
about 5 millimeters to as long as 100 millimeters (about 4 inches).
Hummingbirds drink with their tongue by
rapidly lapping nectar. Their tongues have tubes which run down their lengths
and help the hummingbirds drink the nectar. While it had been believed that
capillary action was what drew nectar into these tubes, high-speed photography
has revealed that the tubes open down their sides as the tongue goes into the
nectar, and then close around the nectar, trapping it so it can be pulled back
into the beak. Consequently, tongue flexibility enables accessing, transporting
and unloading nectar.
Hummingbirds do not spend all day flying, as
the energy cost would be prohibitive; the majority of their activity consists
simply of sitting or perching. Hummingbirds eat many small meals and consume
approximately half their weight in pure sugar (twice their weight in nectar, if
the nectar is 25% sugar) each day. Hummingbirds digest their food rapidly due
to their small size and high metabolism; a mean retention time (MRT) of less
than an hour has been reported. Hummingbirds spend an average of 10–15% of
their time feeding and 75–80% sitting and digesting.
Because they starve so easily, hummingbirds
are highly attuned to food sources. Some species, including many found in North
America, are territorial and will try to guard food sources (such as a feeder)
against other hummingbirds, attempting to ensure a future food supply for
itself.
These Special characteristic’s of a
Hummingbird, let’s us think a lot on our finances and has a lot of relevance,
which we need to imbibe from this small nature creature in our day to day
Financial Life.
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