A newly discovered bird coloration may help answer some questions about how hummingbirds evolve.
When researchers discovered the golden-winged hummingbird, they initially thought they had discovered a new species, but what they found was even rarer.
This bird, found in the Azul Mountains National Park in the Peruvian Andes, is a member of two different species from western South America: the pink-throated brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa glaris, and the rufaus webbed brilliant. This is a hybrid that has never been recorded before. Hummingbird, Heliodoxa branickii.Published in a magazine earlier this year Royal Society Open ScienceResearchers say the discovery opens the door to further questions about hybridization.
According to some researchers, hummingbird species are genetically distinct and do not usually interbreed with each other. press release As for the study at Chicago’s Field Museum, however, “hybrids break that rule.” Researchers aren’t sure how common hummingbird hybrids are, but they may be responsible for the color variation.
“While it is unclear how common hummingbird hybrids like those in this study are, the researchers believe that such hybrids contribute to the diversity of structural colors seen across the hummingbird family tree. I suspect that.”
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The pink-throated brilliant hummingbird and the golden-throated brilliant hummingbird both have bright pink throats, so researchers want to understand how the combination of the two produces the golden-throated hummingbird. That’s what I was thinking.
According to a press release, it’s rare for members of the same hummingbird species to have dramatically different throat colors, which is why scientists were puzzled when the birds’ DNA matched.
“Sometimes hybrids are strange one-offs, or sterile, like mules. In some cases, hybrids can form new species,” the statement said.
Using the rate of color evolution seen in hummingbirds, the researchers estimated that this dramatic pink-to-gold color change would take 6 million to 10 million years to evolve in a single species.
“I looked at the bird and said, ‘This doesn’t look like anything else.’ My first thought was, this is a new species.” said study senior author and curator John Bates.
So how did this rare bird come to be? According to the Field Museum, the answer has to do with “the complex way in which its iridescent plumage colors are determined.”
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How do hummingbirds get their colors? “It’s like cooking.”
According to the Field Museum, the basic colors of feathers come from pigments such as melanin (black) and carotid pigments (red and yellow), but hummingbirds’ colors are iridescent and depend on how light hitting their wings is bent and filtered. The color is determined by the color. Cells from different angles. Color-changing iridescence is the result of structural coloration when light interacts with the micro- or nanostructures of living organisms.
“It’s similar to cooking: If you mix salt and water, you have some idea what you’re going to get, but when you mix two complex recipes together, the results can be even more unpredictable.” said Chad Eliason, senior research fellow at the Field Museum.
“This hybrid combines two complex recipes for making feathers from two parent species.”
14 facts about hummingbirds
- Hundreds of species: According to Hattiesburg American, part of the USA TODAY Network, there are currently 363 recognized species, but that number continues to grow as new species are identified.
- Americas only: Hummingbirds are found nowhere else in the world except in the Americas. However, this was not always the case. Thirty million years ago, the hummingbird’s ancestors lived in what is now known as Poland and Germany.
- The smallest bird in the world: The hummingbird family is the smallest bird on earth, but they are not all the same size.of hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world Weight is 2 grams. For comparison, a penny weighs 2.5 grams.
- People who sleep in extreme cold: Hummingbirds have a body temperature of about 104 degrees, but their body temperature can drop rapidly at night. During sleep, they enter a state similar to hibernation, and their body temperature has been recorded as high as 38 degrees.
- Spiders help build webs. Hummingbirds use lichens to build their nests, which are very soft plant materials, and rely on spiders for some of their construction materials. Birds use thread from spider webs to tie other materials together.
- Growing nest: Because hummingbirds use them to build nests, they are flexible and expand to accommodate the increase in body size as the baby birds grow.
- small eggs: Hummingbirds usually lay two eggs, which are about the size of a Tic Tac.
- Long distance traveler: Hummingbirds can travel thousands of miles during migration. The great-throated hummingbird has the longest overwater flight of any hummingbird, traveling 500 to 600 miles nonstop over the Gulf of Mexico.
- Incredible Glutton: Hummingbirds have voracious appetites, consuming twice their weight in food each day. This is the equivalent of a 150-pound person eating 1,200 of her 1/4-pound hamburger patties every day.
- Spiders also help feed hummingbirds. In addition to flower nectar, birds also eat small flying insects and those they pick up from spider webs.
contribution: brian bloom