House cat vs Bee hummingbird
House cat (46 cm) is 8.07× the size of bee hummingbird (57 mm).
8 bee hummingbirds stacked on end would reach the height of house cat. The gap between them is 40 cm (1.32 ft).
The comparison in numbers
| Thing | Size | In feet | Measured as |
|---|---|---|---|
| House cat | 46 cm | 1.51 ft | head-and-body length |
| Bee hummingbird | 57 mm | 0.19 ft | length |
What the scale shows
House cat (46 cm) is 8.07× the size of bee hummingbird (57 mm). The gap between them is 40 cm (1.32 ft). Both are animals, so the figures describe the same kind of thing.
Draw both on one baseline and the smaller one fills 12% of the frame while the larger one runs to the top. The two are close enough that the difference is easy to see side by side.
Read the rest — 8 more sections
What each figure means
The figure for house cat is its head-and-body length (an adult). The figure for bee hummingbird is its length (an adult, the smallest bird).
Crossing them
Walking pace is 1.4 m/s, so crossing house cat's 46 cm takes 329 milliseconds and bee hummingbird's 57 mm takes 41 milliseconds.
In people: house cat is 0.3 adults of 1.7 m tall, bee hummingbird is 0.03. By size house cat is 21st of the 23 animals on this site and bee hummingbird is 22nd, so 1 place separates them in the ranking.
How to read these two figures
Before trusting any comparison, check what each number measures. The house cat is given as a head-and-body length, an adult. The bee hummingbird is given as a length, an adult, the smallest bird. One is a head-and-body length and the other is a length, so the drawing stands them side by side by convention: everything is stood upright on a single baseline so one scale can hold. That is a fair way to compare overall extent, not a claim that the two are oriented the same way in real life.
Animal sizes vary from one individual to the next, so each figure says which individual or average it describes. Heights are taken at the shoulder or standing; lengths run nose to tail tip unless stated.
Where the pair sits among all the sizes here
Across all 86 things on this site, the house cat is number 84 from the top and the bee hummingbird is number 85. No other item falls between them, so in this collection they are direct neighbours.
Because the collection spans 13 mm up to 1,392,700 km, a ratio of 107,130,769,231× from smallest to largest, the position of a pair says a lot: both sit in the lower third of the list.
What the length ratio hides
A length ratio of 8.07× is easy to picture, but area and volume grow faster than length. If two objects had exactly the same shape, the house cat would have about 65.1× the surface or footprint of the bee hummingbird, and about 526× the volume. For animals volume tracks weight, which is why a long animal is far heavier than its length suggests, and why a small animal cannot simply be a scaled-down copy of a large one.
The drawing above shows length only. The bee hummingbird is drawn 12% as tall as the house cat, but the equivalent share of footprint would be only 1.5%, which is why the smaller one looks even slighter than the numbers alone suggest.
Time to cross each one
A sprinter holding about 10 m/s covers the house cat in 46 milliseconds and the bee hummingbird in 6 milliseconds. Sound, at about 343 m/s in air, takes 1 milliseconds for the larger and 166 microseconds for the smaller. A jet cruising at 900 km/h needs 2 milliseconds and 228 microseconds.
These times assume a straight line and constant speed, which no real crossing has, but they turn a number in metres into something the body understands. At any fixed speed the travel times keep the same 8.07× ratio as the sizes.
The same figures in other units
The house cat measures 46 cm, which is 1.51 ft. The bee hummingbird measures 57 mm, which is 0.19 ft or 2.2 inches.
The difference between them is 40 cm (1.32 ft). In metres the smaller one is 0.06 against 0.46, so the 8.07× ratio holds in every unit; only the numbers on the ruler change.
Questions people ask about this pair
Which is bigger, the house cat or the bee hummingbird?
The house cat is bigger. At 46 cm it is 8.07× the size of the bee hummingbird, which is 57 mm.
How many times does the bee hummingbird fit along the house cat?
8 whole times, with 4 mm left over, using 57 mm for each.
Are the two figures measured the same way?
No. The house cat is a head-and-body length (an adult) and the bee hummingbird is a length (an adult, the smallest bird), so read the comparison as overall extent.
How does the gap look in people?
Taking an adult of 1.7 m, the house cat is about 0.3 people tall and the bee hummingbird is about 0.03. The gap of 40 cm is 0.2 people.
Where do the numbers come from?
Each item has its own page that names the measurement and links to the Wikipedia article it was taken from. Some figures are rounded, and animals vary from one individual to the next, so treat them as representative values rather than records for every case.
How the sizes are taken. Each figure says what it measures — height, length, diameter or elevation — and for which individual or convention. Everything is drawn standing upright on one baseline so a single scale holds, including things that are long rather than tall. Values come from the linked Wikipedia article for each item.