How much does the average hummingbird weigh?
A hummingbird's light weight allows him to fly easier since he doesn't need to build up a lot of momentum to get his body off the ground. Hummingbirds can weigh as little as 2.4 grams and as much as 4.5. As a simple comparison, a U.S. penny weighs 2.5 grams and a U.S. nickel weighs 5 grams. Nearly one-third of a hummingbirds weight, or an average of 30 percent, is muscle. A hummingbird's egg weighs 0.4 grams to 1.4 grams; a newly hatched bird is about 1 inch long and 0.62 gram.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
43 Comments
Katherine McManus Hawkins
How can 2.5 grams be the AVERAGE weight, if, as stated in your answer, 2.4 grams is the smallest weight? Am I missing something? AVERAGE weight.. might be about 3.6 grams..
larrywagner
Here in middle TN we have quite a few hummers, I'll stand still with a peach slice in my mouth, and they'll come to get it. It just takes patience.
Henry Ford 1889
The average is aboutFOUR gram!!!
LevibatteryCSA (Dave)
this Question needs to be fixed.
Susan Lake-Harris
Do we only have male hummingbirds? "It" is perfectly acceptable as a gender neutral term for a bird.
earlepg
I see a lot of comments about 2.5 grams, but the incorrect answers (unless they've been changed) are either very low at 1.0 gms or very high at 8.3 gms and 12.0 gms. The comments started 6 years ago. Certainly after last year, I would have expected the correct answer to have been changed to some more reasonable number between 2.4 and 4.5.
Leonardo Gustavo Silva Vermot
PESIMA RESPUESTA. UN COLIBRI PESA ENTRE 4.8 Y 8.5 GRS..
DE DONDE SACÓ ESTE DATO EL AUTOR ?'?
Rob Farr
An interesting if not controversial question and explanation ...
nrudlandwood
Hummingbirds usually weigh about 1.95 grams. I am not sure where this scale of weight averages comes from but maybe that helps the queries below?
Kat
The AVERAGE hummingbird weights about 4.0 grams. They can weigh AS LITTLE as 2.4 g, so how is 2.5 grams the weight of the average hummingbird?
Mike Hibner
2.5 grams is very close to the weight of the smallest hummingbird, so doubt that the "average" is 2.5. Using the word "average" for a species that contains more than three hundred members is sort of silly, don't you think?
Char
tesla alset, exactly
Char
I knew that one my fave little bird
Linda Spreng
filmnut, Most of the time, police officers don't need forgiveness.
L Lh Adams
Katherine McManus Hawkins, The smallest weighs about 1 gram.
L Lh Adams
When we lived in Brownsville,Tx,there were many thousands of them and many people had feeders. I did my best to grow a large garden for them.
tbear
tesla alset, got your back, Tesla! 😊