If you've been fortunate enough to see a hummingbird in the wild, you know that it flits from flower to flower at lightning speed.
You've probably also noticed the bird's small, delicate size. It doesn't seem at all suited for long flights. But, packed within a hummingbird's body, there is a lot of power, strength, and stamina.
Research has shown that ruby-throated hummingbirds can fly for around 1,370 miles without taking a break.
To give you an idea of how far that really is, it's like the distance between Atlanta and Albuquerque or Tokyo and Taipei. And that's not even the farthest that hummingbirds can fly without stopping for a rest.
Among migrating hummingbirds, rufous hummingbirds have the longest migration route. The species can travel 2,000 miles from southern Mexico to southeastern Alaska.
East Coast hummingbirds migrate to Central America every fall. The University of Southern Mississippi tracked 2,729 hummingbirds in southern Alabama from 2010 to 2014.
They tracked the birds' flight and studied their habits. Then, they analyzed the birds' mass and wingspan and predicted their flight range using a computer program.
They learned that ruby-throated hummingbirds fly across the Gulf of Mexico without ever stopping. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are about three inches long.