2014年4月9日 · About 12 million years ago, the common ancestor of the bee and mountain gem hummingbird groups made the jump into North America—at the time, still separated from South America by a few hundred miles of water.

2018年7月12日 · There is a dazzling diversity of the tiny birds in the Americas, but recent discoveries trace their evolution back to Europe—where today there are no nectar-feeding species.

2014年5月20日 · Researchers have dated the oldest hummingbird fossil to thirty-five to thirty million years old. Amazingly, it was found in Germany, not America. The first hummingbirds may have evolved in Europe, moved to the Americas and then died out in Europe.

Recent research using genetic data from hundreds of hummingbird species reveals that the diversification of modern hummingbirds began about 22 million years ago in South America. There was a veritable explosion of new species evolving in this newly colonized land.

Hummingbirds have varied specialized characteristics to enable rapid, maneuverable flight: exceptional metabolic capacity, adaptations to high altitude, sensitive visual and communication abilities, and long-distance migration in some species.

2014年4月3日 · About 12 million years ago, the common ancestor of the bee and mountain gem hummingbird groups made the jump into North America, which at the time was still separated from South America by a few hundred miles of water.

2014年4月3日 · About 12 million years ago, the common ancestor of the bee and mountain gem hummingbird groups made the jump into North America, which at the time was still separated from South America by a few hundred miles of water.

2014年4月3日 · Hummingbirds took just 22 million years to diversify from a single common ancestor into 338 tiny, colorful species. And they have not finished yet.

2014年4月3日 · These early hummingbirds spread rapidly across the South American continent, evolved iridescent colors – various groups are known today as brilliants, topazes, emeralds and gems – diversified into more than 140 new species in the rising Andes, jumped water gaps to invade North America and the Caribbean, and continue to generate new species today.

2014年4月14日 · Hummingbirds have radiated into a diverse assemblage of specialized nectarivores comprising 338 species, but their evolutionary history has not, until now, been comprehensively explored.