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Great Snipes Gather at a Lekking Ground in Norway to Breed
The great snipe, Gallinago media, has been revealed as the fastest known long-distance traveler not only in the bird world, but also in the animal kingdom.
This rather ordinary-looking mottled brown shorebird puts on weight prior to migrating, enabling it to fly nonstop from Scandinavia across Europe to sub-Saharan Africa in as little as two days.
“They almost double their body weight before the flight,” study leader Raymond Klaassen at Sweden’s Lund University told National Geographic magazine. “And all this fat will be burned during the flight, and they will arrive lean and exhausted in Africa.”
The scientists tracked 10 birds from their breeding grounds in Sweden for one year, and were able to collect data for three individuals that were recaptured.
They found that the birds flew 4,300 to 6,800 kilometers in 48 to 96 hours with very high ground speeds from 15 to 27 meters per second. This translates into an average speed of 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour.
Only one other bird has achieved a similar feat. In 2007, scientists recorded the flight of a godwit from Alaska to New Zealand in nine days at an average speed of around 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour.
“[One] difference between the godwits and the snipes is that the godwits travel over the ocean, and thus have no possibilities to stop,” Klaassen said. “Hence, their amazing flights are not their choice.”
Klassen added that it is still unclear how the birds manage to fly so far without sleep. “This is one of the unsolved mysteries of long-distance flights,” he said.
“We now believe that half of their brain sleeps at [a] time, alternating between the left and the right side. Or they do not sleep at all, but this seems impossible regarding the importance of sleep in general.”
Klassen thinks the snipe’s record may soon be broken as not much is known about other bird species’ migration habits.
“I foresee many surprises in the nearby future, due to the recent development of minute tracking devices. The field of bird migration is currently going through a revolution, and these are certainly very exciting times for us.”
The team’s findings are detailed in an article published in Biology Letters on May 25.
