Dive-bombing for Love: How Male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds Woo Females (IMAGE)

Princeton University

Dive-bombing for Love: How Male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds Woo Females

Caption

Male broad-tailed hummingbirds closely time key events to produce a burst of signals for the females they are wooing, discovered Princeton University's Benedict Hogan and Mary Caswell Stoddard. The birds synchronize maximal horizontal speed, loud noises generated with their tail feathers, and a display of their iridescent throat patch (gorget), all in a mere 300 milliseconds -- roughly the duration of a human blink.

Credit

Courtesy of Benedict Hogan and Mary Caswell Stoddard, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

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