#Mellisuga helenae

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Bee Hummingbird

Photo: Arturo Ruiz Villanueva

"What’s perhaps the most amazing thing about the Bee Hummingbird is its tiny size. It measures only 2.24 inches (5.7 cm) in length, including its bill! Truly as light as feathers, this minuscule denizen of Cuban woodlands weighs only about 2 grams. Its appearance and flight style rivals that of some insects, especially bees, for which it gets its name. The Bee Hummingbird is also the bird with the smallest nest in the world, at only 1 inch in diameter and depth. Their eggs are also the smallest bird eggs in the world, measuring a mere 12.5 x 8.5 mm, the size of a coffee bean. A Bee Hummingbird egg is only half the weight of a standard paper clip!"

- Whitehawk Birding

[birdblues]

Bee Hummingbird

[orca-in-disguise]

Critter fact #153:

The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is the smallest bird in the world. It is found in the Cuban archipelago, and males (shown below) are more colorful than females, which are mainly green and white

[birdirectory]

[thoughtlessarse]

A zunzuncito hummingbird stops for a rest in Palpite village, Cuba. It’s our smallest bird, weighing 2.6g – about the same as a ping-pong ball -Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

I found this week's Week in Wildlife photos difficult to chose from, they are that good so click the image link for more.

[gergarnero]

PÁJARO MOSCA

MELLISUGA HELENAE NOMBRE CIENTÍFICO: MELLISUGA HELENAE. LONGITUD: 5 A 6 CM. PESO: HASTA 2 GRAMOS. PLUMAJE: DIFERENTE PARA AMBOS SEXOS. MIGRACIÓN: NO MIGRATORIO. ESTADO: MENOR RIESGO. UBICACIÓN: CUBA, ISLA DE PINES. LA MÁS PEQUEÑA DE TODAS LAS AVES, EL PÁJARO MOSCA O ZUNZUNCITO MACHO PESA SÓLO 1,6 GRAMOS. ES VERDE, CON LA PARTE INFERIOR DE COLOR BLANCO GRISÁCEO Y CABEZA DE COLOR ROJO FURIOSO…

[herpsandbirds]

I wanna see the tiniest smallest birds you have!

Well thats an easy one!

Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), male, family Trochilidae, order Apodiformes, endemic to Cuba

This species is the smallest bird in the world, weighing in at a maximum of only 2.6 g.

photograph by Falko Düsterhöft

photograph by Dave Curtis

photograph by RitaIvanauskas 

[alonglistofbirds]

Round 2 Group 2

Agami heron - Agamia agami

Atlantic puffin - Fratercula arctica

Bee hummingbird - Mellisuga helenae

Common sunbird-asity - Neodrepanis coruscans

Please reblog with the bird you voted for and why!

[autistrix]

[https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/97821102]

Bee Hummingbird || Mellisuga helenae

Observed in Cuba

Near Threatened in location of observation

Smallest dinosaur ever known

[i-was-today-years-old-when]

i learned about the top 5 curious facts.

1. The worst traffic jam in history lasted 9 days:

This real nightmare took place in the Chinese capital Beijing, in August 2010. The congestion of more than 100 km, which blocked much of the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, was caused by road works and excessive vehicles.

2. The smallest bird in the world is the size of a little finger:

This is the bee hummingbird ( Mellisuga helenae ), a type of hummingbird that lives in Cuba. At just 5.7 cm long and weighing less than 2 g, the little hummingbird bears the Guinness title of the smallest bird in the world.

3. The ostrich has an eye bigger than the brain:

The ostrich, the largest bird in the world, is not only impressive for its size, but also for the size of its eyes, which measure around 5 cm in diameter. It is twice the size of the human eye and comparable to the size of a billiard ball.

4. Whale vomit could be worth millions:

It is ambergris, a substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Also known as “floating gold”, ambergris is used in the manufacture of perfumes and, as it is very rare, it has a very high market value. In 2020, a Thai fisherman found a 100 kg piece of amber on the beach valued at 17 million reais.

5. There are two countries in the world where no one can buy Coca-Cola:

At least officially, there is no Coca-Cola in North Korea and Cuba. The American multinational, manufacturer of one of the most consumed beverages in the world, does not operate in these two countries due to trade embargoes imposed by the United States.

[all-iridescent-birds]

What are the biggest and smallest iridescent birds?

Hello dear Anon! As our bird interest is a bit of a new thing, some research was in order to deduct our answer, and we're still not quite sure. However, we've given you our best attempt. For something perhaps more professional, you might want to go to a-dinosaur-a-day, who we believe is actually qualified to talk about this. We're just a guy obsessed with birds.

Now, explanation out of the way -- the smallest we can tell you with certainty. It is the bee hummingbird, a tiny, the smallest, in fact, bird in the world.

The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is only 2 inches long. Females are slightly longer, but only by a small fraction, and usually lay two eggs, with them being the size of coffee beans. Let that sink in. While their iridescent feathers are not as notable as their other hummingbird relatives, they are still there, and still as shiny as ever.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. We're not sure what the biggest iridescent bird is. Taking a guess, we'd say it's the peafowl. But when you look this up, you don't get a concrete answer, which makes sense, because no offense, no one ever asks this question. But don't worry! We side with you here -- we're just as curious.

Well, we've been doing some math here. At first, we were thinking of the microraptor, wondering if a prehistoric bird would count before we remembered the peafowl exists. But we put it to the side. Then, we remembered the resplendant quetzal and its ginormous tail -- we looked around different pages and totaled the tallest possible quetzal to be around 4 foot on the higher end, but it still wasn't enough. So we looked up the peafowl.

The peafowl has 3 types -- all sharing traits but all fairly different in ways. The one we're focusing on right now is the green peafowl.

The green peafowl (Pavo muticus) is the largest peafowl of the three. As its name suggests, it is primarily green, while the indian is primarily a bluish color, and congo variants are kind of brown.

This is the bird we're talking about here. While maybe not in height (but probably in height), it's definitely in length. Males, pictured above, can be 5 feet and 11 inches at lowest to 9 feet 10 inches at highest. And its iridescence is everywhere, from its tail to its beak, basically.

Honestly, we'll be shocked if this isn't the biggest. Wikipedia describes the green peafowl as 'perhaps, the longest extant wild bird in total beak-to-tail length', as well.

We hope this answers your and anyone else's questions, Anon!

TL;DR: It's the bee hummingbird and green peafowl. Probably!

[pleistocene-pride]

Mellisuga helenae, better known as the bee hummingbird, zunzuncito, the smallest dinosaur, or Helena hummingbird, is a species of hummingbird endemic to the entire Cuban archipelago, including the main island of Cuba and the Isla de la Juventud in the West Indies. Here bee hummingbirds live in fragmented patches of dense forests populated with woody vines and epiphytes. The diet of the bee hummingbird typically consists of flower nectar, tree sap, insects, & spiders. It is a diurnal bird that can fly at 40–48 km/h (25 to 30mph), beating its wings 80–200 times per second. In a typical day, bee hummingbirds will consume up to half their body weight in food. With males reaching around 2.13 inches (5.5cms) in length and .07 ounces (1.95g) in weight, whilst females reach around 2.38in (6.1cms) in length and .09 ounces (2.6g) in weight, the bee hummingbird is both the smallest species of hummingbird and the smallest species of bird alive today. Compared to other small hummingbirds, which often have a slender appearance, the bee hummingbird looks rounded and plump. The male has a green pileum and bright red throat, bluish upper parts, and greyish white underparts. Female bee hummingbirds are bluish green with a pale gray underside with white spots on the tips of there tail feathers. During the mating season, males have a reddish to pink head, chin, and throat. The bee hummingbird's breeding season is March–June, during such time males court females by producing sound with there tail feathers. If success the two shall mate, with the female then constructing a cup shaped nest out of cobwebs, lichen, and tree bark some 9.8 to 16.4ft (3 to 5m) off the ground. Here she will lay 1 to 2 eggs are incubated for 21 days by only the female, followed by 2 days of hatching, and 18 days of care by the mother. Under ideal conditions a bee hummingbird will reach sexual maturity at around 1 year of age and may live up to 10.

[dailyanimal]

Mellisuga helenae

[luahgar]

This is Amarílis, the giraffe who had a neck bigger than the world and who dreamed of backpacking. It was created by the smallest birds in the world (until then), the "Mellisuga helenae" and loves to read Clarice Lispector! 🌳

[hamatos-talk]

Okay.. let me talk to you about hummingbirds then..

Humming birds are small tiny guys, most species are between 3 to 5 inches long, or 7 to 13 centimetres from the tip of the tails to the end of their bill; at the two ends of this spectrum (within the humming bird family) you have the Bee hummingbird which is 2.2 inches and the Giant humming bird at 9 inches long.

The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), that lives in Cuba is actually the smallest bird species in the world this tiny fella weighs less then a penny. Hummingbirds are shiny and sport colourful plumage that don't appear in many other animal species around the world, including vibrate purples like the Lucifer humming bird.

-🪻

Purple?

[herpsandbirds]

Two prompts:

A tiny bird (parrot or otherwise)

A tiny nudibranch

I'm open to either if you don't want to do both. 👍🏻

Well, let's go for the TINIEST BIRD!!!

Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), male, family Trochilidae, order Apodiformes, endemic to Cuba

This species is the smallest bird in the world, weighing in at a maximum of only 2.6 g.

photograph by Aslam Ibrahim

Various nudibranchs (order Nudibranchia)

photograph by Keita Kosoba