hummingbird
Hummingbirds have to feed and live close to very dangerous insects. So, they had to find a way to protect themselves. But they aren’t always successful. It turns out the fight between hummingbirds and bumblebees is not rare but pretty common. For bumblebees and hummingbirds, it’s nothing special it is a fight for resources. In 1998 the first bumblebees were bought from Europe to Chellie. No one knows how this happened, but most likely someone wanted to improve pollination. You might think that introducing something as harmless as pollinator insects is not a big deal. But in nature nothing is small. In Chellie, bumblebees have become nectar thieves. This disrupted the normal relationship between a pollinator and a plant. Usually, a pollinator collects nectar from the pollen and it’s a win-win for everyone. Instead, the bumblebees bite the walls of the flower at the glands that produce nectar and suck all the nectar only for themselves. In this case, the insects bypass this entire scheme designed by evolution. The bumblebees were supposed to get to the nectar through the petals. As you know stealing nectar bypassing evolution can’t lead to anything good. If plants aren’t pollinated, they won’t be able to reproduce because they already evolved to do with the help of insects. This means that the plant population will decrease and will affect the hummingbird population. But you might think what does hummingbird have to do with plants? The thing is that hummingbirds originated to pollinate the flowers that the bumblebees stole nectar from. Fewer flowers mean less food for the hummingbirds. But the problems may not end there because the evolutionary process always is at work. Because of the bumblebees, the shape of the flowers changed. So, what should a hummingbird do in this case? After all, hummingbirds look the way they are because of the flowers. You can see it when you look at the sword-built hummingbird. Of all the bird species this tiny bird has the longest beak and it evolved for a reason. The flowers were arranged in a special way so that only the hummingbird could access them. No one except the hummingbirds could access them! Only these sword-built hummingbirds could do this. You might be thinking, what if a hummingbird got stung by a bee? Well, nothing good, sometimes the hummingbird even dies from the sting. This insect can easily outsmart the little bird. This attack would be very lethal. Then, what can a hummingbird, do in this situation? Hummingbirds can flap their wings 50m per second. No bird can do air stunts like that. They can fly back and for in any direction at all. This not only allows hummingbirds to have a quick snack but also doge dangerous insects. Some birds can be as fragile as bees themselves. But hummingbirds have gone far further than this, it’s hard to believe but these tiny birds actually are fierce dangerous warriors. Some hummingbirds have turned their beaks into weapons, in South American tropics where hummingbirds have to compete for food. Evolution has dramatically changed their beaks. They are tougher with a hook in the end. In some cases, hummingbirds have serein between which look like rows of teeth. You heard it right, these birds have rows of teeth! Evolution has given hummingbirds a weapon. That’s so cool! But it doesn’t work all the time. The bees steal food from hummingbirds anyway. Sometimes the hummingbirds are driven away from human feeders by bees. Bees act as a single organism ready to stand up for each other in case of conflict. They do this because when winter comes, they need to rely on the food that is already present in the hive. They are at risk of starving. Hornets attack the hives of honey bees and kill them; they are an invasive species. The media called Asian giant hornets killer hornets. Their stings can be fatal to almost anything including humans. What happens if a hummin bird gets stung by a giant hornet? The answer is the hummingbird will die in seconds. We need to protect hummingbirds and bees from giant hornets so that they cannot damage our ecosystem and/or make bees and hummingbirds extinct or endangered. These two creatures are important pollinators. If they all die, the ecosystem will get damaged, we need to protect them!
