Bee Hummingbird

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Bee Hummingbird

The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is a hummingbird

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are birds in the family Trochilidae, and are endemic to the Americas. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 15?200 times per second ....
, and the smallest of all bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s. It can be found in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is a country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba , the island of Isla de la Juventud, and several adjacent small islands....
(where it is called the zunzuncito), including the Isle of Youth

Isle of Youth

Isla de la Juventud is the second-largest Cuban island and the sixth-largest island in the West Indies. The island has an area 3056 km? and is 100 km south of the island of Cuba, across the Gulf of Bataban?....
. Its mass is approximately 1.8 g

Gram

The gram , ; symbol g, is a Physical unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or Scientific notation kg, which itself is...
, and it is about 5 cm (2 inches) long.

male has the pileum and fiery green throat, iridescent gorget

Gorget

File:Gorget .pngA gorget originally was a steel Collar designed to protect the throat. It was a feature of older types of armour and intended to protect against swords and other non-projectile weapons ....
with elongated lateral plume

Plume

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Encyclopedia

The Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is a hummingbird

Hummingbird

Bird

Cuba

Isle of Youth

Gram

Description

The male has the pileum and fiery green throat, iridescent gorget

Gorget

Plume

Plume may refer to:In fashion:* A prominent bird feather#Utilitarian functions often used as an ornament** Hackle, an ornamental plume on a uniform headdress...
s, bluish upper-parts, and the rest of the underparts mostly greyish white. The female is green above, whitish below with white tips to the outer tail feathers. Female bee hummingbirds are bluish green with a pale gray underside. The tips of their tailfeathers have white spots. Breeding males have a reddish to pink head, chin, and throat. Non-breeding males look like females, except that their wingtips have blue spots. The female lays only two eggs at a time and they are bright orange with pink spots. The bee hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world. Its body is about the size of a large bee

Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants. Bees are a monophyly lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila....
. Like all hummingbirds, it is a swift, strong flier. It also can hover over one spot like a helicopter. The bee hummingbird beats its wings an estimated 80 times per second — so fast that the wings look like a blur to human eye

Human eye

The human eye is a significant human sense organ. It allows humans conscious light perception, vision, which includes color differentiation and the perception of depth....
s. During courtship displays the male may beat his wings at 200 times per second. The brilliant, iridescent colors of the bee hummingbird's feather

Feather

Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates....
s make the bird seem like a tiny jewel. But the iridescence isn't always noticeable. It depends on the angle at which a person looks at the bird. The bird's slender, pointed bill is designed for probing deep into flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s. The bee hummingbird feeds mainly on nectar. With a tongue shaped like a long tube, the bird sucks up nectar — and an occasional insect

Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
or spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom. In their bodies the usual arthropod segments are fused into two Tagma , the cephalothorax and abdomen, joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel....
— just as if it were using a drinking straw

Drinking straw

A drinking straw is a short tube used for transferring a liquid - usually a drink from one location to another . The earliest drinking straws were hollow stems of grass, literally made of straw....
. In the process of feeding, the bird picks up pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
on its bill and head. When it flies from flower to flower, it transfers the pollen. In this way, it plays an important role in plant reproduction. In the space of one day the bee hummingbird may visit 1,500 flowers. Using bits of cobweb

Cobweb

Cobweb can refer to:...
s, bark

BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
, and lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiosis association of a fungus with a Photosynthesis partner , usually either a green algae or Cyanobacteria ....
, the female bee hummingbird builds a cup-shaped nest that is only about 1 inch in diameter. She lines the nest with soft plant fibers. In this nest she lays her eggs, which are smaller than coffee bean

Coffee bean

A coffee bean is the seed of the Coffea . The fruits, coffee cherries or coffee berries, most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together....
s. She alone incubates the eggs and raises the young.

External links

on the Internet Bird Collection
from birdingcuba.com
VIREO
(with photos);