Cusco Sword-Billed Hummingbird Peaks
Sacred Valley Cloud Timberline, Cusco, Peru · Latin America & Reefs · mountain_alpine
About this place
Examine reciprocal coevolution between Ensifera ensifera and long-tubed Passiflora mixta alongside high-altitude Andean hemoglobin physiology.
For kids: Meet the only bird on Earth whose beak is longer than its whole body—drinking from giant hanging trumpet flowers high in the Andes!
Cusco Sword-Billed Hummingbird Peaks · 360° Habitat Camp
What to look for
- Hanging Andean passionflower vines — Passiflora mixta — Ensifera lock-and-key. Centre the Passiflora liana edge coevolved exclusively with Ensifera ensifera
- Paper-bark Polylepis preening perch — Polylepis woodland & pedal preening. Locate the high-elevation Polylepis boughs where Ensifera rests bill-upward
- Thin-air Cusco mountain sky — Patagona gigas & high-O2 hemoglobin. Scan the high-altitude ridge shared with giant hummingbirds (Patagona gigas)
Source: Abrahamczyk, Souto-Vilarós & Renner (2014), Proc. R. Soc. B & Projecto-Garcia et al. (2013), PNAS — Ensifera–Passiflora coevolution & Andean hemoglobin.
Ask together: Try touching your nose if your nose were longer than your arm—how do you think the sword-billed hummingbird combs its own feathers?
Field quiz
Kids' question: Since a sword-billed hummingbird's beak is longer than its whole body, how does it comb and tidy its feathers?
- It balances on one leg and scratches its feathers neat with its tiny feet!
- Other birds line up to brush it with twigs
- It dips its whole beak into tree sap
Answer
It balances on one leg and scratches its feathers neat with its tiny feet!
Adults' question: What evolutionary pattern did phylogenies reveal when some Passiflora species secondarily shortened their floral tubes (Abrahamczyk et al., 2014)?
- Extreme specialization rendered Ensifera vulnerable whenever mutualist Passiflora partners declined or switched to bat pollination
- Ensifera shortened its bill by half within two generations
- Sword-billed hummingbirds switched entirely to catching alpine trout
- Short-tubed flowers fused petals shut against all insects
Answer
Extreme specialization rendered Ensifera vulnerable whenever mutualist Passiflora partners declined or switched to bat pollination
360° photo: Johnattan Rupire, CC BY-SA 4.0
See it live: Live check: Giant & Sword-Billed Hummingbird Cam
- By day
- Sword-billed hummingbirds, giant hummingbirds, shining sunbeams & chestnut-breasted coronets Observe side-by-side scaling extremes of Trochilidae live near Cusco: 20 g Patagona gigas alongside 12 g long-rostrum Ensifera ensifera.
- By night
- Starry high-Andean puna chill & nocturnal cloud-forest moths Above 2,900 m in Cusco, radiative night cooling drives some of the deepest recorded avian torpor bouts, dropping body temperatures below 10 °C.
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