A hummingbird can beat its wings at 50 beats per second, which is so fast that it looks like a buzzing blur in the air. Hummingbirds are also able to zoom up to a flower at 40 kilometres per hour (24 miles per hour) and stop in an instant.
Kingdom of the krill
Kingdom of the krill In 1925, the British Government instigated a
series of investigations into the biology and migratory habits of
whales. They found variations between 'blue-whale years', when this
species was abundant, and ‘fin-whale years', when there were
not as many blue whales and industry was forced to take the less
profitable fin whales. An explanation for the variation in numbers
of whales rests on the number of krill available during these
years. Krill, a tiny ocean crustacean, is the main food source of
blue whales, and it has been suggested that during the fin whale
years, the krill were in short supply. Samples of krill netted over
the past two decades from the seas around South Georgia, in the
Southern Ocean, provides evidence that the abundance of krill
continues to change from year to year, just as it did in the heyday
of whaling. Now, studies of krill predators, such as whales and fur
seals, are starting to give scientists a way to predict when
crashes in krill numbers will occur. 17 APRIL 1999, P. 36-41
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