{"id":4284,"date":"2015-08-18T19:59:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T23:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4284"},"modified":"2015-08-24T12:03:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T16:03:54","slug":"how-hummingbirds-drink-rethinking-50-years-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/how-hummingbirds-drink-rethinking-50-years-of-research\/","title":{"rendered":"How hummingbirds drink: rethinking 50 years of research"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4285\" style=\"width: 273px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Amazilia_amazilia-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4285\" class=\"wp-image-4285\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Amazilia_amazilia-4.jpg\" alt=\"The Amazillia amazillia is one species of hummingbird the researchers captured on film during the five years they monitored wild hummingbird feeding. (Image credit: Su Neko, Wikipedia Commons) \" width=\"263\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Amazilia_amazilia-4.jpg 315w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Amazilia_amazilia-4-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 263px) 100vw, 263px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4285\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Amazillia amazillia is one species of hummingbird the researchers captured on film during the five years they monitored wild hummingbird feeding. (Image credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Amazilia_amazilia-4.jpg\">Su Neko, Wikipedia Commons<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>High-speed videos have shown how hummingbirds feed on nectar, and it\u2019s not what was previously thought. It\u2019s not in the same way fluid rises in a capillary tube. Hummingbirds actually extract nectar by creating a tiny pump using the tongue.<\/p>\n<p>The new findings mean that fifty years of research studying how hummingbirds and floral nectar coevolved will have to be reconsidered.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers captured videos of 18 hummingbird species in the wild, all feeding using the pump method. In this method the hummingbirds compress and flatten their tongue until it makes contact with nectar, after which it reshapes filling entirely with nectar. This method loads nectar faster than the capillary method could, and is in agreement with their fast licking rates.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/282\/1813\/20151014\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0<em>Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>August 18<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0author<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Alejandro Rico-Guevara, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, \u00a0University of Connecticut, Connecticut, U.S.A.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High-speed videos have shown how hummingbirds feed on nectar, and it\u2019s not what was previously thought. It\u2019s not in the same way fluid rises in a capillary tube. Hummingbirds actually extract nectar by creating a tiny pump using the tongue. The new findings mean that fifty years of research studying how hummingbirds and floral nectar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,114,171,215,917],"class_list":["post-4284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-birds","tag-ecology","tag-environment","tag-evolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Amazilia_amazilia-4.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-176","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4287,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284\/revisions\/4287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}