Fighter Jet of the Animal World
A male hummingbird in its aerial display achieves speeds proportionally faster than a jet fighter with its afterburners on, reported the BBC News – and that’s on nectar and wings, without jet fuel. The tiny birds even resemble top-gun fighter jets in the pictures accompanying the article.
It took a camera shooting 500 frames per second for a US researcher to measure the birds whizzing by at 400 body lengths per second. That’s faster, too, than a space shuttle re-entry. National Geographic said that in terms of body lengths per second, this beats out the reigning champion, the peregrine falcon.
Gotta love those animals. Is your hummingbird feeder out? Take your kids to see the Navy Blue Angels or Air Force Thunderbirds, then tell them by the backyard feeder about this story.