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[Narrator: A scientist in Peru [pause for peep] captured this, escaping from the tiny body [pause for peep] of a sleeping hummingbird. [pause for peep] A high-pitched [pause for peep] but unmistakable snore. [pause for peep] Hummingbirds are loved for their beauty and speed [pause for peep] but this one was behaving a little bit like a human. [pause for peep] The perfect cute-response trigger.]
ptarmigans explain
Ahh, this video! I haven’t seen it make such a big run in a while!
Anyhow, onto science.
Hummingbirds are very small species that require a lot of energy to so much as exist. Such high energy does, in turn, require them to sleep efficiently in the time that they have, as well as do so quickly and make every moment count.
To do this and to escape other energy-sucking events like cold nights, hummingbirds go into this state of suspended animation called torpor. In this state, their body almost completely shuts down for maximum efficiency in their rest. To pull themselves from torpor, though, they must rapidly restart their metabolic engines, which requires a whole lot of oxygen.This Amethyst-Throated Sunangel is doing just that– pulling herself out of torpor. The snoring you hear is just the noise result of her inhaling deeply, and is technically more similar to a gasp than a snore. It is cute nonetheless, though – look at her little tongue sticking out, hehe.
This entire hummingbirds study is actually very impressive; what she is sitting in is an oxygen chamber which measures just how much oxygen she takes in while pulling herself out of torpor. Here are some more photos of the study.
TL;DR– BBC is spreading blatant misinformation again. This bird isn’t snoring as much as she is waking up!
Also can we please stop Anthropomorphising everything. It really irritates me how everyone tries to relates it back to us, we aren’t that great. Let the humminging bird be cute without “human behaviour.” so often false information is shared purely because people try and twist animal behaviour into human behaviour.
(Source: i-gwarth)
