Hummingbirds


hummingbird

Featured Research

Conservation Genetics
Population Health Status
Identifying threats to hummingbird populations

Researchers: Holly Ernest and Lisa Tell

Collaborators: Cathy Koehler, Paul Aigner, McLaughlin UC Natural Reserve, Susan Wetherington, and members of Hummingbird Monitoring Network, Nancy Anderson, Lindsay Wildlife Museum Veterinary Hospital, and UC Davis Wildlife Museum

Western Hummingbird Project - collaboration with US Forest Service, Hummingbird Monitoring Network, and many others.

Did you know.....

....that hummingbirds can fly
upside-down and backward?

....Hummingbird names in Spanish?
Picaflores (beak flower)
Chuparosa (flower sucker; also name of bush visited by hummingbirds)
Colibri
Pinda or Pindal from the mapudungun (chilean dialect of Mapuche people)

Huitzilopochtli was the Aztecs and Mexica’s mythological hummingbird god.
And here's some real trivia - the tiny mite (size of pin point) that lives on hummingbird feathers is named after the mythical hummingbird god: Proctophyllodes huitzilopachtilii

Hummingbird Feather Mite

Feather mite microscope photo from a California Anna's hummingbird
Photo © Robin Houston and Holly Ernest UC Davis

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Anna's Hummingbird

 

Top Hummingbird photo credit: © Hector Brandan
Bottom Hummingbird photo credit: © Tom Greer