Longest Nonstop Animal Flight

The animal kingdom is filled with amazing migrations. 

From the hordes of wildebeest stomping across the Serengeti to the lumbering blue whales along the Pacific Coast, seasonal journey sometimes thousands of miles long can be found in just about every ecosystem on Earth. 

But one animal stands out among the rest of these impressive travelers: the little-known and criminally underrated bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica). 

Preferring summers in Alaska and winters in Australia or New Zealand, these large, noisy sandpipers make an epic voyage twice a year. 

While it’s not the longest migration in the world overall, the bar-tailed godwit flies between its two travel destinations nonstop in a journey that can last 11 days or perhaps even longer.

On October 13, 2022, a 4-month-old bar-tailed godwit with the rather uninspiring name “B6” took flight for Australia, likely after fattening up on crustaceans and mollusks at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwestern Alaska. 

Before the bird departed, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tagged B6 with a solar-powered satellite transmitter to better understand the flight characteristics of juvenile godwits. 

After 11 days of nonstop flying, B6 arrived in Tasmania, Australia, on October 24, having traveled 8,425 miles. The USGS confirmed that this is the longest recorded nonstop flight of any animal on Earth, beating out a record of 8,100 miles set the year before by 4BBRW, an adult bar-tailed godwit. 

To put the achievement in perspective, bar-tailed godwits can fly across the entire Pacific Ocean without stopping at an age when humans are barely capable of lifting their own heads. Let them be underrated no longer.