By Dennis Schatz - Vice President of Strategic Development
The question in this edition is:
What bird flies 7,200
miles without stopping?
The Answer - godwits
Scroll down to see the solution to our
puzzle.
In August, the bar-tailed godwits leave their summer
breeding grounds in Alaska. They fly for 7,200 miles
without stopping until they land within miles of where they
left in New Zealand six months earlier. The ability to
follow the path of these birds over vast areas of open
water is now possible because of advanced GPS technology.
Small transmitters implanted in the abdomen of the birds
allow precise tracking of their flight paths by satellites
orbiting the Earth. This allows scientists to track the
godwits’ entire migration, which starts in March with a
6,000 mile nonstop flight to China. Five weeks later the
birds make another nonstop flight of 4,800 miles to Alaska.
You can follow the migration of the godwits at
→alaska.usgs.gov.
This 18,000 mile migration in six months may include the
longest nonstop flight, but it is not the longest migration
path. That honor goes to the →sooty shearwaters that fly 44,000 miles in nine months.
How these birds — and other migrating animals — navigate
without getting lost is still an area needing more
research. Some experiments indicate that some birds have an
internal magnetic compass, while other may use the stars to
navigate. Pigeons use visual clues from flying over
familiar terrain, while other studies indicate that
familiar odors are the key for some birds. It is likely
that evolution gave birds several ways to navigate, just as
the Space Shuttle has backup systems in case one system
doesn't work.
Here is the solution:
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