The distance traveled by a sea osprey is equivalent to making 2.5 times the journey from London to New York – The bird lost “half or more of its body weight”
Thalassolimosa number “234684” was carrying a 5g satellite transmitter when it left Alaska on October 13, 2022 and landed in Tasmania 11 days later without stopping once for food or rest, the Guinness World Records organization said.
The distance traveled is equivalent to making 2.5 times the journey from London to New York, or a third of the full circumference of the planet. The previous record was set in 2020 by another bird of the same species, and this year’s thalassolimosa smashed it by 350 kilometers (217 miles).
World’s longest flight record broken! The bar tailed Godwit is a bird that has fascinated me for a long time, and I have been following their ultra long journeys to their winter feeding grounds and all the way back. This one beats all known records! https://t.co/oqHpNZ30Ok
— Airplanetalk (@airplanetalk) January 7, 2023
“The new record holder was lucky to survive his journey across the vast Pacific Ocean and to several islands, including New Caledonia and Vanuatu, where he appears to have missed the opportunity to refuel,” the agency said.
Ospreys normally migrate to New Zealand, but this particular bird made a sharp 90-degree turn and landed on the shores of Ansons Bay in eastern Tasmania, Australia.
For migratory birds, a missed turn can prove fatal because they spend several weeks flying over oceans and continents from one end of the planet to the other, the agency said in a statement.
Migratory birds “adapt” to travel
Eric Waller of Birdlife Tasmania told Guinness World Records that the bird lost “half or more of its body weight during continuous day and night flight”.
Although most birds migrate many miles in search of food and warmer climates, some have the ability to physically transform to respond to environmental conditions.
Some species can drastically change their bodies and metabolism, shrink the size of their internal organs, quickly gain weight and burn fat stores, sleep little and have many other superpower-like properties, the Guinness World Records organization says.
Thalassolimos make room for energy-rich fats by absorbing 25% of the tissue that makes up their digestive system, liver and kidneys. This is made possible through a biological process known as autophagy, a mechanism that allows the body to recycle parts of itself as and when required.
They can also make their heart and chest muscles bigger during flight to deliver more energy and oxygen to those areas.
RES-EMP
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