ID Tell us what you need
  1. Home
  2. Stories
  3. the hummingbird
the hummingbird

The coin-sized bird that crosses the Gulf of Mexico nonstop

This bird weighs about as much as a coin, and some of them cross the Gulf of Mexico in one go.

Watch it in Bahasa Indonesia →

Share this story WhatsApp X Facebook LinkedIn

The real story

A ruby-throated hummingbird's heart beats around 1,260 times a minute in flight, and it may visit 1,000 to 2,000 flowers a day just to keep up. Burning energy that fast, it can't stay 'on' all night: it drops into torpor, a nightly mini-hibernation in which its heart can slow to under 50 beats a minute and its body cools down.

Before migrating it eats until it has nearly doubled its weight. Some birds then fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico, up to about 800 km of open water with nowhere to land or feed, a trip of roughly 18 to 22 hours. Others take the long way round along the Texas coast. Either way, it is an astonishing distance for a bird of about 3 grams.

What the narrator says

Tap a line to jump to it.

The facts we checked

  • A hummingbird's heart can beat up to about 1,200 times a minute; its wings beat dozens of times a second
  • At night it can drop into torpor, slowing its heart to save energy
  • Ruby-throated hummingbirds, weighing about as much as a coin, can fly nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico — up to about 800 km (500 miles); some take the land route around it instead

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

Made by teodolist studio

Want a series like this?

Need videos like this for your brand or school?

We made all 240 of these, in English and Indonesian, from one script each. We make story series for brands, schools and channels.

Tell us what you need How storybook videos work Videos for schools

More stories like this

1:05 the sloth Why sloths risk their lives once a week to go to the bathroom 1:06 the bonsai The 400-year-old bonsai that survived Hiroshima 1:03 the burr How a burr stuck to a dog became Velcro 1:04 the orangutan The Tapanuli orangutan: the rarest great ape on Earth 1:01 the cockroach Why cockroaches are so hard to get rid of 0:56 the mantis shrimp The mantis shrimp: a punch like a bullet and eyes with 12 colour receptors

← All stories Next story: Si Kancil and the crocodiles, in the trickster's own words →