Hochachka’s work suggested that the likely mechanism behind the hummingbird’s extraordinary metabolism is related to proteins in its liver and muscles, which process fuel sources such as sugars and fats into energy. Wong stumbled onto this question when he read a series of papers from the 1980s out of the lab of University of British Columbia researcher Peter Hochachka, Ph.D. And we need to figure out why it’s so good for them, so we can understand why it’s so bad for us.” “I’m a good old-fashioned American boy - I love my white bread and Twinkies, but sugar is not good for humans,” says Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering researcher Winston Timp, Ph.D. Uncovering what makes the hummingbird’s metabolism so extraordinary could yield insights into what goes wrong in human metabolic disease and perhaps even novel ways to fight it. “Hummingbirds have solved two of the problems that humans are facing: obesity and diabetes,” says Johns Hopkins Medicine metabolism researcher G. William Wong, Ph.D. The hallmarks of late-stage human diabetes - kidney failure, blindness and stroke - appear completely absent. Yet considering the bird’s massive sugar binge, and its rapid weight gain and loss, there don’t seem to be biological downsides. As soon as they take off, they rapidly burn through those fat stores, at rates that put humans’ abilities to shame. Other sugars wind up in the liver where supercharged enzymes process them into fat that fuels the birds’ migration. Much of the sugar goes straight to their muscles to fuel the constant buzz of their wings and their rapid heartbeat, which can reach up to 1,200 beats per minute. They slurp down so much sugar that their blood sugar levels are high enough to kill or seriously hurt a human. To survive their migration, the birds rapidly pack on weight, as much as doubling it in a matter of days. To keep up the blistering pace of their flight, they need the human equivalent of over 150,000 calories every day. It’s fall on the East Coast, and the ruby throated hummingbird is preparing to follow the warm weather across the Gulf of Mexico, flying hundreds of miles without stopping for food. Their aerodynamic bodies seem to hover in the air, and the rapid buzz of their wings - up to 80 beats per second - creates a vague blur. This is something though that has some truth to it.They flit from flower to flower, sucking up all the nectar and small bugs they can find. There are rumors about Hummingbirds hibernating but many people dismiss them. These birds can eat up to 3 times their own weight in food every single day. They also consume pollen and they will eat small insects as a way to get protein. There are many types of food that Hummingbirds consume. They will continue this process until they have the attention of a female that they can mate with. Known as the courtship dive, the males will go at least 60 feet in the air and then rapidly shoot down, make a U turn, and do it again. The mating rituals for the Hummingbird are interesting too. This has become a very common place for bird watchers to gather and to take in the exciting sight. The Gulf of Mexico is one of the common areas where they are seen during the migration period. They are able to cover a great deal of distance every day. More Facts about Hummingbirds…ĭuring the colder times of the year the Hummingbirds migrate up to 500 miles.
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