Asia's No Hummingbird is a hit with the crowd who love these cute pocket critters. Everyone knows about hummingbirds from books.
In order to make up for the regret, people call the sunbird, which is very similar in appearance and feeding behavior to hummingbirds, but not hummingbirds, "Asian hummingbirds".
He even mistook a moth for a hummingbird and finally named it "Hummingbird Hawk Moth" (Macroglossum stellatarum).
Almost all of the 338 known species of hummingbirds are found in Latin America. Most of these species are distributed in tropical and subtropical Central and South America, and some species live in temperate regions.
Hummingbirds feed mainly on nectar, but like other birds, they also prey on small insects.
In 2004, German ornithologist Gerald Mayr discovered 30 million-year-old hummingbird fossils in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Changed the long-held notion that hummingbirds are Native Americans. It is also an important step in the study of hummingbird evolution.
These hummingbird fossils are preserved in a museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Unlike other larger vertebrates, hummingbirds don't leave many fossils behind.
Before this, scientists had found hummingbird fossils in soil layers in Brazil and the Bahamas. The fossils were formed during the Pleistocene period of geological time, about 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago.
Meyer's new hummingbird fossil isn't very complete, and it exhibits some features more like swifts than modern hummingbirds. Coupled with the misleading concept that hummingbirds have always been considered to be unique to the Americas, Meier finally confirmed that this is an early hummingbird fossil after more careful observation and research. And named "European Hummingbird".
The ancestors of modern hummingbirds all arrived in South America about 22 million years ago. South America provides excellent conditions for the explosive evolution of hummingbirds, especially in the Andes.
For example, in cold high-altitude regions, there are relatively few pollinating insects, which makes room for hummingbirds to survive and thrive.
Hummingbirds' good use of ecological niches is also reflected in their adaptation to isolated valleys and steep hillsides with rapidly changing climates. In addition, the Andes Mountains also provide a habitat for hummingbirds, from which hummingbirds have evolved into nine different species including South American hummingbirds.
Some species of hummingbirds then re-entered North America in search of habitat.
About 5 million years ago, hummingbirds entered the Caribbean Sea six times.
This evolutionary process of hummingbirds is quite interesting and seems to be perfect. However, with the development of genetic technology, scientists sequenced the bird genome and found that birds generally lack the coding genes for sweet taste receptors that vertebrates need to perceive sweetness.
Birds lack the gene sequence encoding T1R2 in their genomes and should not perceive sweetness. But how do hummingbirds, birds that feed primarily on nectar, forage without sweet receptors?
Scientists conducted a selection preference experiment on hummingbirds with sucrose aqueous solution and purified water, and the results proved that hummingbirds prefer sucrose solution. This suggests that hummingbirds are able to sense "sweetness".
