Alaska Bird Makes Longest Nonstop Flight Ever Measured

National Geographic News ^ | 9-14-2007 | Dave Hansford

[corkoman]

No one - even in their wildest dreams - could possibly think this bird evolved like this - now could they? What a feat!

I don't recall seeing the Godwit on the manifest of Noah's Ark.

What about this story makes you conclude that there was no natural selection going on in this bird's ancestry?

[pianomikey]

Well, the vegitation here in AZ, for example, is pretty darn dry most of the time. They do get some moisture, but mostly it’s that hyper-metabolism they have where they eat like their body weight per day or something. Stored fat has not been metabolized yet and also has a high water content. I bet that helps.

[Bryan24]

Gen 6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every [sort] shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep [them] alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

Gen 6:20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every [sort] shall come unto thee, to keep [them] alive.

[Nachoman]

Big deal. The bird sleeps for the next three weeks.

[dirtboy]

Grrrrrrr... :->

You think you can throw a hanging curveball like that and not have someone on FR spank it? :^)

[DoughtyOne]

Not this crew...

LOL

[Psycho_Bunny]

"It's the equivalent of a human running at 70 kilometers an hour [43.5 miles an hour] for more then seven days."

Only....it's nothing like that...at all.

[tubebender]

29 feet? and you know that because they had to fly around the CB antenna on your Dodge?

[RightWhale]

Yes, they flew between trees and below the cloud ceiling which was 30’. Their Vee formation was kind of ragged but at least they missed powerlines which even Blackhawks don’t always.

[reg45]

Perhaps the most impressive altitude record is that of a flock of Whooper Swans which was seen on radar arriving over Northern Ireland on migration and was visually identified by an airline pilot at 29,000 feet. Birds can fly at altitudes that would be impossible for bats, since bird lungs can extract a larger fraction of oxygen from the air than can mammal lungs.

From the link at #1.

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you. I appreciate you pointing that out to me.

[spanalot]

“”It’s the equivalent of a human running at 70 kilometers an hour [43.5 miles an hour] for more then seven days.””

“Only....it’s nothing like that...at all.”

Lets see the bird try to do 43 mph in a Mercedes - now that would be something!

[MikeD]

That’s incredible. My first response, though, was could it do this while carrying a coconut? Or perhaps two Alaskan birds could carry it between them...