A hummingbird's heart can beat 1,200 times a minute
To power the fastest metabolism of any warm-blooded animal, hummingbirds run their bodies at a pace that would kill almost anything else.
The hummingbird has the fastest metabolism of any warm-blooded animal for its size. To stay aloft, its wings beat about 70 times per second in normal flight — and over 200 times per second in a dive — fast enough to produce the audible hum that gives the bird its name.
Keeping that engine running demands an extraordinary heart. A ruby-throated hummingbird’s heart beats around 225 times a minute at rest and more than 1,200 times a minute in flight, and the bird must feed almost constantly to keep up.
The metabolic cost is so high the bird cannot survive a cold night at full throttle. To get through it, hummingbirds drop into torpor, a deep sleep-like state in which the heart and metabolism slow dramatically and body temperature falls far below the usual 105°F — letting them coast until dawn.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
