The bee hummingbird lives in Cuba and is about as small as a bird can possibly get and still work. From beak to tail it’s just about 2 inches long. It weighs less than two grams - lighter than a paperclip - and is so tiny that people regularly mistake it for an unusually colorful bee.
Even though it’s the size of an insect, it’s a real bird with feathers, wings, lungs and a heart. That heart hammers along at more than 1,200 beats per minute when it’s flying. Its wings beat 80 times every second, blurring into a hum.
Living that fast costs energy. A bee hummingbird visits around 1,500 flowers a day to drink nectar, and at night it drops into a deep sleep-like state called torpor - its body almost shuts down - to save fuel until sunrise. Its eggs, when it lays them, are about the size of coffee beans.
