Baby, I Just Luvs Your Long Tail

For many bird species, there are few turn-ons bigger than long tails.

Think peacocks, lyre birds and quetzals. Then there is the Jamaican red-billed streamertail hubba-hubba hummingbird (photo, left).

But aren't long tails literally a drag?

To find out, biologists outfitted short-tailed Anna's hummingbirds with long tail feathers from a red-billed streamertail, giving the Anna's two tail feathers that were five times the normal length, and put them in a wind tunnel.

This is what they found.