If you’re a fan of the movie “Top Gun”, you’ve surely seen the sequel in which Maverick (Tom Cruise) reaches Mach 10 during a test flight of his Darkstar aircraft. Impressive, to say the least, but then it’s Hollywood. The G-force at this speed would likely have been 8-9 Gs. Most pilots could sustain 9 Gs for a few seconds before passing out.
But there’s one vertebrate that can beat that. The Anna’s Hummingbird. Found from British Columbia south to Arizona, Anna’s Hummingbirds are the fastest animals on earth, relative to their body size. They’re faster than Peregrine Falcons, fighter jets, even the Space Shuttle, relative to size.
This impressive display comes during the courtship behavior, when male Anna’s Hummingbirds perform dives that move them up to 385 body lengths per second (blps), or 27.3 meters per second! Fighter jets with their afterburners on reach speeds of 150 body lengths per second, the Space Shuttle during atmospheric re-entry reaches 207 blps, and Peregrine Falcons by comparison dive at 200 body lengths per second.
Our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are no slouches either. They’ve been clocked at 200 wing beats per second during a courtship dive, which equates to speeds as high as 60 mph. No matter how you calculate it, that’s fast for something that weighs less than a marshmallow.
So the next time you see a hummingbird at your feeder, take a minute to think about their flight capabilities. It’s one more amazing fact about hummingbirds!
To learn more about the study which measured the speed of Anna’s Hummingbirds, click here.
To read more about their daring courtship flights, click here.
Want to see the first 10 minutes of the movie, Top Gun: Maverick? Click here.
Submitted by Gina Sanders
Feature photo of Anna’s Hummingbird by Alan Fink