According to recent research, hummingbirds may have very small brains but excellent memory when it involves food. These small birds weigh 0.7 ounces or less and their food consists of nectar and insects.
Research published in the journal Current Biology proposes that hummingbirds can remember their food source and actually plan with some precision.Susan Haley from the University of Edinburgh said, "To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that animals in the wild can remember both the location of food sources and when they visited them,"
Healy, along with scientists in Britain and Canada, have studied the Rufous hummingbird that lives in the Canadian Rockies. The Rufous hummingbird can remember the location of specific flowers and the last time they visited them. These are two examples of episodic memory previously considered exclusive to humans. Healy stated, "Hummingbirds that defend territories of many flowers remember which flowers they have recently emptied."
In the birds' feeding grounds, scientists kept track of how frequently the hummingbirds visited eight artificial flowers filled with a sucrose solution. Once the flowers were empty the scientists refilled half after 10 minutes and other half after 20 minutes.
Scientists discovered that the birds' returned to the flowers according to the refill schedule. The flowers refilled every ten minutes were visited by the hummingbirds sooner than those refilled every 20 minutes. Healy commented, "We were surprised that their timing abilities were so good and that they managed to cope so efficiently with as many as eight different flowers."
The Rufous hummingbird has the longest migration route of all US hummingbirds. In the winter, the Rufous hummingbird migrates 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Canada to Mexico. In the spring they return home to reproduce.
Scientists believe that the hummingbird's brain has become extremely developed because they travel long distances and don't have time and energy to waste looking for food.
Author: Madeline White
Author Bio:
Madeline White specializes in flower delivery online. She is especially focused on Canadian flower delivery.
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