Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Fastest Bird by Size: You'd be Surprised

And who's the fastest bird of all, by size? Would you believe the hummingbird? Yep, they've been clocked at 60 mph, which converts to about 385x its own body length every second, as they flaps theirs wings 55 times a second all to, you guessed it, impress the females with their physical prowess at being able to execute the stunt and survive the g-forces that come with it. As always it seems, it's all about the hoo-ha!

3 comments:

parakeet said...

The little birds that whip by my front window are indeed amazing creatures. I'm not 100% sure that their speed is about impressing the females, though. (Don't the female birds flap their wings fast, too?) After what I once read about the peacock:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/
26/peacock-feathers-females.html
"Female Peacocks Not Impressed by Male Feathers" I have my doubts about certain popular theories of sexual selection. That said, I do believe that the males try to impress the females, but not necessarily by means of their speed.

Hmm, maybe I should change my codename to hummingbird.

ScienceAvenger said...

Or to Contrarian. Or back to Alex...

parakeet said...

By luck, I found this video of a bird who flaps its wings faster than a hummingbird:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Bsu4z9Y3k
It even moonwalks!