Watch: Sleeping hummingbird โsnoresโ
Todayโs โCaturdayโ video features a โsnoringโ hummingbird that is awakening from torpor in a small environmental chamber
by GrrlScientist for The Guardian | @GrrlScientist
A few weeks ago, a twitter follower (โtweepโ) asked me if sleeping birds snore. I told her that snoring in birds is a sign of trouble requiring immediate veterinary intervention. But that question did make me ponder โsnoringโ in birds because, depending upon how you define โsnoringโ, you could claim that perfectly healthy birds might snore under certain circumstances. For example, when birds awaken from torpor, they might make sounds that could be mistaken for โsnoringโ.
Torpor is a state of suspended animation that hummingbirds and some other bird species use to survive cold nights. When a hummingbird awakens from torpor, they are rapidly restarting their metabolic engines, which requires a lot of oxygen. Thus, as hummingbirds awaken, they open their bills so they can inhale deeply to bring in plenty of oxygen to meet their rapidly increasing metabolic demands. I suppose we might think of this as โgaspingโ for air.
In todayโs โCaturdayโ video, we watch a female amethyst-throated sunangel, Heliangelus amethysticollis, in a small environmental chamber at a research station in Peru. This chamber is a standard research tool that is designed to measure the amount of oxygen the occupant is consuming. The hummingbird in the video is awakening from torpor and the high pitched sound she is making is not real snoring. Instead it probably is the result of deep inhalations meant to rapidly increase her oxygen intake.
The hum of the environmental chamber is louder on the recording than in real life. And yes, that is her tongue sticking out. You can see more photographs from this research project on this photobucket site.
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Originally published at The Guardian on 11 April 2015.
