Drinking - heaviest

Gray · 64615. Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:45 am

Question: Which animal is the heaviest drinker.

Forfeit: (Many!)

Answer: The broad-tailed hummingbird.

Notes: The biggest drinker in the world is the broad-tailed hummingbird, which can manage five times its own bodyweight (in amber nectar) every day.

Conversely, the Ruby-throated hummngbird can drink a coupld of grammes of nectar and then fly more than 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to get to its winter home in Central America. There's some fuel economy for you.

Source: Amazing Nature, Mark Carwardine, 2005.