Hummingbirds are some of the fastest and most agile birds on Earth. They can squeeze into incredibly small spaces to get nectar and hit flight speeds as high as 9Gs while courting without getting physically hurt. They also appear to have very controlled methods of flight. Hummingbirds use two distinct sensory strategies to control how they fly, depending on whether they are moving forward or hovering. The findings are described in a study published January 10 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
[Related: Hummingbirds have two creative strategies for flying through tight spaces.]
When flying forward, hummingbirds rely on an “internal forward model.” This model is an ingrained and intuitive autopilot that allows them to gauge speed while experiencing multiple visual stimuli.
“There’s just too much information coming in to rely directly on every visual cue from your surroundings,” study co-author and University of British Columbia zoologist and comparative physiologist Vikram B. Baliga said in a statement.
However, when the birds are hovering or handling cues that may require them to change their altitude, the team found that they use more real-time, direct visuals from their environment.
To study these flight patterns, the team brought 11 wild adult male Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte anna) into the lab. They prompted the birds to repeatedly fly from a perch to a feeder in a tunnel about 13 feet long and recorded videos of each flight. The team also projected patterns on the front and side walls of the tunnel to test how the hummingbirds reacted to this variety of visual stimuli.
In some flight scenarios, the researchers projected vertical stripes that were moving along at various…
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