Researchers recently determined that the hummingbird is the fastest bird alive when you measure relative to size and by that measure it actually flies faster than the space shuttle re-entering orbit, or an F-18 – 385 times its own body length a second.

Hummingbird Diving In Action from Science News on Vimeo.

Today wired covered some promising hummingbird bot development, which is looking really impressive (and just got more funding). One wonders how such a thing would be powered for long period of time, but first things first.