Although the brain of a hummingbird is only the size of a grain of rice, these tiny creatures have exceptional memory skills when it comes to foraging for food, a new study reveals.
These minute beings weigh just 20 grams or less and feed on nectar and insects.
 |
Rufous Hummingbird. (Photo: Rshantz) |
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests that these birds not only remember where food sources are located but can also plan their visits with a certain degree of accuracy.
“For us, this is the first evidence that wild animals can remember both the location of food sources and the timing of their visits,” said Susan Healy from the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Healy and collaborators from the UK and Canada studied Rufous Hummingbirds in the mountainous regions of Canada. They found that the birds remembered the locations of specific flowers and the last time they visited them—two aspects of episodic memory that were previously thought to be unique to humans.
The scientists calculated how often the hummingbirds visited eight artificial flowers filled with sucrose solution in the birds’ foraging area.
For half of the flowers, they refilled them with sugar every 10 minutes, while the other half were refilled every 20 minutes after the flowers had been emptied.
The birds returned to these “nectar bags” as if on a schedule: those with refills every 10 minutes were visited earlier.
“We were amazed at their ability to plan so effectively and that they were attempting to optimize their foraging among up to eight different flowers,” Healy said.
The scientists speculate that the hummingbird’s brain has developed so well because they need to program themselves for long-distance flights, and they don’t want to waste time and energy searching for food. On average, Rufous Hummingbirds migrate over 3,219 kilometers during the winter from Canada to warmer weather in Mexico. In spring, they return home to breed.
T. An
