Reels tagged #birds

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Animals

A hummingbird's heart beats 1,200 times a minute

In flight a hummingbird's heart can hit around 1,200 beats per minute and its wings blur at 50-80 beats per second. To survive the night they drop into torpor, slowing everything to a near hibernation.

#animals#birds#biology
Animals

Crows make tools and hold grudges

New Caledonian crows bend wire into hooks to fish grubs out of logs, and crows can remember a human face that threatened them for years, teaching that face to their flock.

#animals#birds#intelligence
Animals

Flamingos are born grey

Their pink comes entirely from carotenoid pigments in the algae and brine shrimp they eat. A flamingo on the wrong diet slowly fades back to pale white.

#animals#birds#biology
Animals

One bird flies to the Moon and back three times

The Arctic tern migrates pole to pole every year, roughly 70,000 km, and over a 30-year life covers a distance comparable to three round trips to the Moon.

#animals#birds#migration
Animals

Owls cannot move their eyes

Owl eyes are tubes fixed in the skull, so they rotate their heads up to 270 degrees instead. Extra neck vertebrae and blood reservoirs keep the brain supplied through the twist.

#animals#birds#biology