News Animals

Hummingbird tongues may work like micropumps

How nectar rises through specialized grooves has inspired debate

POWER SIP  A new way of looking at hummingbird tongues says they work like tiny pumps, challenging the familiar idea that the birds sip nectar by capillary action. 

K. Hurme

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

A new way of looking at hummingbird tongues sees them mainly as long, skinny pumps.

This view challenges an old notion of how hummingbirds sip — that nectar flows up open grooves in the tongue the way water rises inside thin capillary tubes, says functional morphologist Alejandro Rico-Guevara of the University of Connecticut in Storrs.