VIDEO: Hummingbird Tongues Act Like Tiny Pumps

D-brief
By K. N. Smith
Aug 19, 2015 3:00 AMDec 18, 2019 9:05 PM
Hummingbird - Shutterstock
(Credit: Dennis W. Donohue/ Shutterstock)

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Hummingbirds’ whole survival strategy is built around motion. Since they can’t afford to linger too long at one flower, they’ve evolved a way to drink nectar in a hurry.

And a new study using super slow-motion video indicates their tongues do that in a very different way than previously thought. Instead of siphoning up nectar using capillary action, hummingbird tongues are actually pumping liquid up in a very unexpected way. That discovery flies in the face of what biologists have thought for more than a century.

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