Amazing birds!! I was wondering how many hours of sleep a hummingbird needs, 8 hours per night like human?

Knew a bit about the torpor energy conservation before the lesson, but not the extreme length of dropping from 110 down to mid 50s.  Finding about the differences in limb length compared to most birds helped make a lot more sense of the life mechanics of the hummingbirds compared to other hovering birds.

With regards to nighttime torpor— how do female hummingbirds and their eggs and young manage nighttime torpor and incubation and brooding?  Do  eggs and young go through nighttime torpor as well?

I knew the terms - torpor and realized the high energy demands. The course was good at communicating what these things actually entail. The diagram on the tongue mechanism was the big surprise to me. I have worked closely with many species of birds and have been amazed at the adaptions in tongues - flaps and tubes etc. It was fascinating to visualize the tongue structure in the hummingbird since it is so small. There's a lot going on there.

I only recently learned about torpor and hummingbirds.  I love the images in the video shared and how it showed the degree to which their bodies cool / shut down every night.  Fascinating.  Also, the shape of their wings, the size of their sternum and flight muscles ... again, amazing.

I already knew that hummingbird's wings were different, but seeing how their wing bones compare to those of other birds was very interesting.

I really knew nothing about them prior to this course.  They are fascinating birds!

I think it's fascinating how efficient hummingbirds are in using energy, especially by using torpor to stay alive at night. That amount of metabolism is crazy and impossibly for me to comprehend as a human. No wonder hummingbirds get so territorial over their food - they literally have to keep eating, all the time, to stay alive!

nourriture qui n'est pas uniquement composée de nectar

son hibernation ou sa torpeur et ce d"autant que j'en ai vu un dans cette position la nuit

son vol unique et expliqué

I enjoyed the animation that displayed/explained how the tongue works.

It would also be interesting to learn more about how thermal imaging is used to quantify torpor. The addition of a table which showed the change in body temperature over a period of time (ie. sunset to sunrise) would be intriguing to read.

no sabia que  el letargo su temperatura  bajada  y muchas.  Y cosas nueva e aprendido 

I was hoping they would give us much more in-depth information about torpor, specifically how and why their bodies start & stop it. I appreciate the overview & the course, so far. I think I was just hoping for a deeper dive on everything!

I had not realized how deep the torpor of a hummingbird gets.  Their range of temperatures is remarkable.

They are clearly vulnerable in torpor -- I wonder how well hidden they are and how many are lost in an average night.

Nothing was new for me.

I was fascinated to learn how hummingbirds use ultraviolet light and other parts of the light spectrum to detect their prey, a visual ability that differs markedly from human vision.

I assume we will soon learn what hummingbirds feed their young.  I assume they have to raise the percentage of protein to sugar in that case.

The nectar robbing was a new for me.

The nectar robbing was a new aspect of their feeding mechanism.  And their utilization of Sapsucker holes as a food source was amazing.

what they do for survival at night is amazing!

Yes! Didn’t know one species has only been seen on three occasions and that there could be other species not observed yet!!

how they hover

The flight mechanism is so ingenious and robbing nectar, so surprising.  Bill adaptation and evolution is quite fascinating. Nectar/insect perportion was surprising for me. I wonder if they sleep the nights in summer or they have to torpor always, no matter what the temperature is. All in all it was a fascinating lecture.

I didn't know that some species of hummingbirds feed from sap wells drilled by sapsuckers. Curious that the anatomy of the tongue and head is so similar between hummingbirds and woodpeckers. Makes sense, since members of both taxa use the tongue to reach far into the preferred food source. I felt so sad for the little Tyrian Metaltail in the photo, trying in vain to nectar from the trumpet vine. Long tongue, but not quite long enough!

The split at the tip of the tongue was also a revelation to me. I found the video model showing how a hummingbird draws nectar from a flower to be instructive.

The comparison between the flight adaptations of the raven and of the hummingbird also gave me a better understanding of how hummingbirds are capable of hovering and backward flight.

As far as surprises, well, I'm glad I don't daily have to drink my body weight's equivalent of anything in order to survive. Or eat 300 bags of potato chips every day--ewwwww!

Torpor was something that I knew absolutely nothing about. That was absolutely fascinating!