Bar-tailed Godwit

Fascinating facts about the Bar-tailed Godwit

• A bar-tailed godwit tagged in Alaska flew 11,680 km non-stop to New Zealand in 11 days without landing, eating, or drinking—the longest unbroken flight of any animal on Earth. Its heart rate never dropped below 400 beats per minute. When it arrived, it had burned nearly half its body weight, yet within weeks it was defending territory and finding a mate.
• Before migration, a godwit's digestive organs shrink by up to 20%, its stomach nearly vanishes, and fat deposits balloon to twice their normal size—a complete biological restructuring that happens in weeks. The bird essentially becomes a flying fuel tank with wings, then rebuilds itself on arrival. Scientists still don't fully understand the biochemical trigger that starts this metamorphosis.
• On Arctic breeding grounds, a godwit's bill grows up to 9 cm long—longer than its entire head—and contains sensory organs so sensitive they detect a shrimp moving 3 cm under sand in pitch darkness. The tip bends upward like a reverse tweezers, allowing it to probe deep into mud without opening its mouth. No other shorebird hunts this way.
• Bar-tailed godwits navigate 11,000-km ocean crossings using Earth's magnetic field, which they sense through magnetite crystals in their eyes and a protein called cryptochrome. They also read the angle of polarised sunlight and memorise star maps—a triple-redundancy GPS system wired into their skull. If one system fails, the others get them home.
• The population breeding in western Alaska has crashed 75% since the 1970s, largely because their stopover sites in the Yellow Sea—shallow mudflats in China and Korea—are vanishing under urban development at a rate of 1% per year. A bird that survived crossing an ocean can't survive losing a 48-hour rest stop. Without habitat protection 8,000 km away from their breeding grounds, these migrants are slowly being erased.

At a glance

About the Bar-tailed Godwit

As the Bar-tailed Godwit takes to the skies, its slender form slices through the air with effortless elegance, propelled by the relentless urge to migrate to its Arctic breeding grounds. With each beat of its wing, it embarks on an odyssey of over 11,000 kilometres, a testament to its remarkable endurance and navigational prowess. In a world of shifting landscapes and unpredictable tides, this near-threatened bird has evolved to thrive in the margins, its haunting calls echoing across the wetlands like a poignant reminder of the beauty and fragility of life.

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