Ruby-throated hummingbird

Where does the ruby-throated hummingbird live?

Home: Gardens and forests of eastern North America.

In the wild you find it in: United States, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama.

Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.

The short profile

Fully grown it measures 7–9 cm long. It weighs about 0 003 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.

The story behind it

A ruby-throated hummingbird's wings beat around 50 times per second, creating the humming sound that gives the family its name and allowing it to hover in place, fly backwards, and even fly upside down for a moment. To fuel this fast flight, it drinks flower nectar almost constantly and also eats tiny insects and spiders for protein, visiting up to a thousand flowers a day. Its heart can beat over 1,200 times a minute during flight, one of the fastest heart rates of any animal. Each autumn, many ruby-throated hummingbirds fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico, a journey of about 800 km that takes around 20 hours, fuelled only by fat stored before the flight. Despite their tiny size, they remain widespread and common.

Find it on the globe

Ruby-throated hummingbird is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.