Click to Open Overlay GalleryThis is how a male bee hummingbird looks at you when you ask it, “Why the long face?” Kevin Elsby/AlamyThere’s a lot to be jazzed about in the rekindling of relations between the US and Cuba. It seems like a pretty nice island, after all. As travel restrictions lift, American beach types will get nice beaches, cigar types get nice cigars, and people who like both will get the opportunity to piss off fellow beachgoers. Almost everyone wins! Especially fans of biodiversity, for Cuba is an absolute gem, a place where conservation—not to mention the lack of ecosystem-ravaging capitalism—has preserved all manner of majestic creatures to gawk at.Among these island wonders is the smallest bird in the world: the bee hummingbird. It weighs a mere 1/15 of an ounce—less than a dime—and builds nests the size of a quarter (sorry, all this talk of capitalism is getting to me). It hunts mosquitoes like a hawk would hunt a pigeon. And its eggs? They’re the size of coffee beans. The bee hummingbird is so tiny, it actually competes with insects for resources, as opposed to other birds. Oh, and it’s somewhat hyperactive, beating its wings up to 200 times per second.
