Chubby Little Birds Make Superfast Long-Distance Fights

By Brandon Keim May 25, 2011 | 5:32 pm | Categories: Animals


In the record-keeping annals of life on Earth, make way for the great snipe — a small, stocky shorebird that takes the fastest long-distance, nonstop flights of any animal that’s not in an airplane.

During its annual migration, a single snipe may fly for 96 consecutive hours, covering more than 4,000 miles. That’s four days without stopping or sleeping, sometimes at average speeds of 50 miles per hour.

“We know of no other animal that travels this rapidly over such a long distance,” wrote researchers led by biologist Raymond Klaasen of Sweden’s Lund University in a May 25 Biology Letters study.


‘An unexpected and previously unknown strategy in bird migration.’
In May of 2009, Klaasen and colleagues put geolocating tags on 10 great snipes captured on Sweden’s western coast. One year later, they recaptured three of the birds. Their tags contained the first detailed records ever of great-snipe migration.

The voyages proved to be extreme, even for the already-extreme world of avian migration. The birds had flown nonstop to central Africa in late August 2009. One trip spanned 2,800 miles, another 3,800 miles, and the third more than 4,200 miles. Respectively these took 48, 72 and 84 hours.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/great-snipe-migration/

:evilgrin: