Hummingbirds rapidly respond to the removal of visible light and control a sequence of rate-commanded escape maneuvers in milliseconds

Hummingbirds routinely execute a variety of stunning aerobatic feats, which continue to challenge current notions of aerial agility and controlled stability in biological systems. Indeed, the control of these amazing maneuvers is not well understood. Here we examined how hummingbirds control a sequence of maneuvers within milliseconds and tested whether and when they use vision during this rapid process. We repeatedly elicited escape flights in Calliope hummingbirds and removed visible light during each maneuver at various instants and quantified their flight kinematics and responses. We show that the escape maneuvers were composed of rapidly-controlled sequential modules including evasion, reorientation, nose-down dive, forward flight, and nose-up to hover. The hummingbirds did not respond to the light removal during evasion and reorientation until a critical light-removal time; afterward, they showed two categories of luminance-based responses that rapidly altered maneuvering modules ..., , , # Hummingbirds rapidly respond to the removal of visible light and control a sequence of rate-commanded escape maneuvers in milliseconds

## Description of the Data and file structure

The mat file contains data from two birds used in the experiments (bird_1 and bird_2)

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**tSH:** contains the data on the relationship between light removal time instance and time to stop and hover.

* logitRegg: logistic regression optimized parameters and critical light removal time instance.
* linearModel: Linear fit model for light removal time instance and time to stop and hover for Category II and Category III demonstrations.
* data: Raw data of light removal time instance and time to stop and hover.  [time in milliseconds]

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**hoverData:** Wing kinematics data during hovering before the start of escape maneuvers

* LWstr: Left-wing stroke angle [degree]
* LWdev: Left-wing deviation angle [degree]
* LWstr: Left-wing pitch angle [degree]
* RWstr: Right-wing stroke angle [degree]
* RWdev: Righ...