Hummingbird Tongues Detailed in New Study, Disproving a Long Held Theory

For dozens and dozens of decades, scientists have been trying to figure determine exactly how the tongue of a Hummingbird works.

Scientists have long wondered about the exact physics surrounding hummingbird tongues.

Along with Kristilina Hurme, the University of Connecticut researchers confide that these birds are not able to use their tongues like straws, so instead of generating suction, “the system works like a tiny pump, powered by the springiness of the tongue”. Because of its particular shape and the fact that it has a hollow interior, scientists believed that the basis of the bird’s feeding process was capitalization, a natural phenomenon that allows liquids from two containers to communicate due to the difference in pressure.

“Nectar is kind of a bribe”, study co-author Margaret Rubega, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at UConn, said in the release.

Observations and measurements were taken from seven countries throughout the Americas where free-living, never handled hummingbirds were feeding at modified transparent feeders simulating nectar volumes and concentrations of hummingbird pollenated flowers. This occurred when, during initial tongue protrusion, one of the groove tips adhered to the feeder wall before the tip reached the surface of the nectar pool and the groove tip bent as the tongue continued to move forward. The only hummingbird found east of the Mississippi is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, so the researchers had to go further afield to gather a broad sample. It has recently been discovered that a hummingbird’s tongue uses pumping, not suction when drinking nectar, according to a number of tests and experiments conducted.

Hummingbirds beat their wings approximately 50 times per second, but that’s nothing compared to how fast they can drink.

The discovery of the micro-pump method of feeding may lead scientists to revisit previous hummingbird research, Rico-Guevara said.

Finally, the bird retracts its tongue and squeezes the nectar from the reservoir, again flattening the tongue in advance of its next slurp, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.