作者:HOLLT LARGE
Compilation: Stars
Image source: https://www.iflscience.com/
BIRD may not be able to get a driver's license (BOO), but it just so happens that some of them find another way to do the least amount of exercise: soaring. At some point, they do have to flap their wings – but which one can go the longest without doing so?
To find out, we must go to the Andes, where the absolute unit of the Andean vulture is. When we say units, we're not kidding – this thing can weigh a staggering 15 kilograms (33 pounds), making it the heaviest soaring bird in the world.
What may seem like something heavy can't be lifted off in the first place, but the Andean vulture also has an impressive wingspan of up to 3.2 meters (10.5 feet). Their weight is also part of the reason for their soaring; It is too expensive for such a large bird to slap a lot of energy, so they use the thermals to stay in the air.
As a result, the researchers found that the Andean vultures spent the least amount of time flapping their wings as they flew out of the soaring birds, which felt appropriate.
A team of researchers from Swansea University and the National University of Comahue tracked eight Andean vultures over a five-year period, tagging them with GPS devices and recording devices that can record their wing beats.
From this data, they found that vultures flap their wings only 1% of their flight time. According to one study, this means that they can only take the title from wandering albatrosses, which can spend up to 14.5% of their time until they flap their wings slowly with only 1.2% of their flight time.
Similar to albatrosses, most of the time the vultures in the study flapped their wings during takeoff – in fact, more than 75 percent. For the remainder of the day, they managed to avoid flapping their wings by making the most of the wind and currents, so much so that one bird even managed to fly for five hours without flapping its wings, covering 172 kilometers (just under 107 miles) during that time.
That being said, the weather doesn't seem to have much of an impact on whether or not vulture flapps its wings. "This suggests that decisions about when and where to land are critical, because not only does the Condor need to be able to take off again, but an unnecessary landing will significantly increase its overall flight cost," study author Dr. Hannah Williams said in a statement.
Thankfully, this decision-making ability doesn't seem to come with age for the younger pigeons – all the vultures in the study are immature. "Our findings suggest that even inexperienced birds can fly long distances on land without flapping," the authors write.
Source: https://www.iflscience.com/whats-the-longest-a-bird-can-fly-without-flapping-its-wings-73664
