- Who
- Bar-tailed godwit, Limosa lapponica baueri
- What
- 13,560 kilometre(s)
- Where
- Australien ()
- When
The longest recorded migration by a bird, without stopping for food or rest, is around 13,560 km (8,425 miles) by a satellite-tagged, juvenile bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri) that flew directly across the Pacific Ocean from Alaska, USA, to Tasmania, Australia. The five-month-old bird left Alaska on 13 October 2022, arriving in Ansons Bay, north-east Tasmania, 11 days and one hour later. The bird is known only as "234684", the number of a 5G satellite tag attached to its back.
Bar-tailed godwits feed for two months in Alaska (where the species has its summer breeding grounds) before the flight to New Zealand; in this time, males may double in size. They are able to shrink the size of their internal organs to make way for energy-rich fat, which will help sustain them during their epic flights. Airborne during both day and night, they may burn through more than half of their body weight. They can also boost the size of their chest muscles and heart while flying, to aid the distribution of energy and oxygen.
