When you watch hummingbirds at a nectar feeder, it might appear as though these tiny birds are using their long bills as a straw. But the mechanism is very different. Hummingbirds trap nectar from ...

Hummingbird bills — their long, thin beaks — look a little like drinking straws. The frenetic speed at which they get nectar out of flowers and backyard feeders may give the impression that the bills ...

The development of the proboscis, a coiled straw-like mouthpart that can suck up nectar and other fluids, helped boost the diversity of Lepidoptera. Here, a tiger longwing, Heliconius hecale, drinks ...

Back in June, I heard a constant stream of people complain that they weren’t seeing any hummingbirds. “Just wait,” I admonished them. “May and June are hummingbird quiet time. Mrs. Hummingbird feeds ...

The big yellow butterflies you’re seeing now are Cloudless Sulphurs (Phoebis sennae), a familiar species in the Lowcountry and other parts of the Southeast. Cloudless Sulphurs are common in late ...

One nectar bat can launch its tongue one and a half times its body length, longer than any other mammal and second only to chameleons among vertebrates, scientists recently discovered. The tube-lipped ...

Hummingbird bills -- their long, thin beaks -- look a little like drinking straws. But new research shows just how little water, or nectar, that comparison holds. Scientists have discovered that the ...