Ciekawostka: Hummingbirds are the only animals that can fly backwards

Evidence: 67 • authority: 88

Wings for Hummingbirds to Fly With. This chapter employs the famous rabbit-duck illusion to develop a dialectical approach to change. While individuals perceive only rabbit or duck at a given moment, most, if not all, can also see the other. Switching back and forth between the rabbit and the duck creates consciousness about knowledge. This dialectical approach is applied to a symbolic model of creativity. The latter refers to the human capacity to question interpretations of the world and to find new relationships among constituent elements. Metonyms and metaphors are fundamental to human discourse and link knowledge domains in newbutincomplete ways. By hovering between domains, they build…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 72

Theropoda (; from ancient Greek θηρίο- ποδός [θηρίον, (therion) "wild beast"; πούς, ποδός (pous, podos) "foot"]) is one of the three major clades of dinosaurs, alongside Ornithischia and Sauropodomorpha. Theropods, both extant and extinct, are characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. They are generally classed as saurischian dinosaurs, placing them closer to sauropodomorphs than to ornithischians. They were ancestrally carnivorous, although a number of theropod groups evolved to become herbivores and omnivores. Many members of the subgroup Coelurosauria were covered with feathers, and it is possible that they were also present in other theropods. In the Jurassic,…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 72

The Goofus bird is a mythical, backwards-flying bird, originating in lumberjack folklore in North America. It is also known variously as the Filla-ma-loo bird or the Flu-fly bird. The Goofus Bird flies backwards, as it does not care where it is going, only where it has been, and it builds its nest upside down. It is described as having a conspicuous appearance, with a turkey-like head, long green neck, with silver scales, a black right wing and a pink left wing. A person likened to a Goofus Bird is a person low in intellectual curiosity and indifferent to their forward direction. Goofus is a possible origin of the word doofus, slang for a person prone to foolishness or stupidity, perhaps in…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Hummingbirds fly sideways through tiny foliage gaps

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

Do hummingbirds use cool perches so they can fly in the heat?

Evidence: 51 • authority: 80

HUMMINGBIRDS MAKE FLYING BACKWARDS LOOK EASY

Evidence: 51 • authority: 92

Sideways maneuvers enable narrow aperture negotiation by free-flying hummingbirds.. Many birds routinely fly fast through dense vegetation characterized by variably sized structures and voids. Successfully negotiating these cluttered environments requires maneuvering through narrow constrictions between obstacles. We show that Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) can negotiate apertures less than one wingspan in diameter using a novel sideways maneuver that incorporates continuous, bilaterally asymmetric wing motions. Crucially, this maneuver allows hummingbirds to continue flapping as they negotiate the constriction. Even smaller openings are negotiated via a faster ballistic trajectory char…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 92

Hummingbirds use compensatory eye movements to stabilize both rotational and translational visual motion.. To maintain stable vision, behaving animals make compensatory eye movements in response to image slip, a reflex known as the optokinetic response (OKR). Although OKR has been studied in several avian species, eye movements during flight are expected to be minimal. This is because vertebrates with laterally placed eyes typically show weak OKR to nasal-to-temporal motion (NT), which simulates typical forward locomotion, compared with temporal-to-nasal motion (TN), which simulates atypical backward locomotion. This OKR asymmetry is also reflected in the pretectum, wherein neurons sensitiv…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 92

Hummingbirds use distinct control strategies for forward and hovering flight.. The detection of optic flow is important for generating optomotor responses to mediate retinal image stabilization, and it can also be used during ongoing locomotion for centring and velocity control. Previous work in hummingbirds has separately examined the roles of optic flow during hovering and when centring through a narrow passage during forward flight. To develop a hypothesis for the visual control of forward flight velocity, we examined the behaviour of hummingbirds in a flight tunnel where optic flow could be systematically manipulated. In all treatments, the animals exhibited periods of forward flight in…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 72

The sword-billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera), also known as the swordbill, is a neotropical species of hummingbird from the Andean regions of South America. It is the only member in the genus Ensifera. Among the largest species of hummingbird, it is characterized by its unusually long bill, being the only bird to have a beak longer than the rest of its body, excluding the tail. It uses its bill to drink nectar from flowers with long corollas and has coevolved with the species Passiflora mixta. While most hummingbirds preen using their bills, the sword-billed hummingbird uses its feet to scratch and preen due to its bill being so long. The sword-billed hummingbird is a trap-line feeder a…

Evidence: — • authority: 35