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Weekly Article | ||
The Cuban Bee Hummingbird Creatures great and small our Lord created them all. Sometimes I wonder if God was running out of creative power when He created the Cuban Bee hummingbird. At 2 grams of weight, lighter than a dime, this is the smallest bird in the world and one of the smallest vertebrates in existence. It is 2¼ inches long (compared to 4-5 inches for most North American hummers) and that total includes the long, thin bill used for sipping nectar. Because it is warm-blooded, there is a limit to how small a hummingbird can be, since the smaller a creature is, the more heat-dissipating skin it has in relation to heat-producing body mass. Apparently, the bee hummingbird is as far down the scale as nature can go in the bird department; any smaller and the hummer's metabolism would not be able to keep up with the demands for heat. These diminutive creatures can beat their wings nearly 50 times per second, which gives them the appearance of a large bee. You would think that a creature that small would like to stay out of harm's way but not the male Bee Hummingbird. They like to perch at the top of trees or branches out in the clear while they zoom, zoom away sporting their beautiful iridescent ruby red throat. |
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