Some male hummingbirds have weaponized their bills, making them less efficient feeders
Date:January 2, 2019
Source:University of California - Berkeley
Most hummingbirds have bills and tongues exquisitely designed to slip inside a flower, lap up nectar and squeeze every last drop of precious sugar water from their tongue to fuel their frenetic lifestyle.
But in the tropics of South America, University of California, Berkeley, scientists are finding that some male hummers have traded efficient feeding for bills that are better at stabbing and plucking other hummingbirds as they fend off rivals for food and mates. The males' weaponized bills are good not only for pulling feathers and pinching skin, but also wrestling their rivals away from prime feeding spots.
Using high-speed video cameras, the researchers have for the first time captured hummingbird fencing and feeding strategies in slow motion to document the various ways the birds use their bills to fight and the trade-offs they accept when choosing fighting over feeding prowess.
"We understand hummingbirds' lives as being all about drinking efficiently from flowers, but then suddenly we see these weird morphologies -- stiff bills, hooks and serrations like teeth -- that don't make any sense in terms of nectar collection efficiency," said Alejandro Rico-Guevara, a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and the lead scientist on the project. "Looking at these bizarre bill tips, you would never expect that they're from a hummingbird or that they would be useful to squeeze the tongue."
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