Godwit: This Bird Flies From Alaska To Australia Without Stopping, Creates Guiness World Record

New Delhi: A bar-tailed Godwit bird broke world record for the longest nonstop migration after it flew 8,435 miles from Alaska to Tasmania without stopping anywhere. The bird’s 11-day journey, which gained a place in history of Guiness World Records, was recorded by the 5G satellite tag attached to its lower back.

“According to the 5G satellite tag attached to its lower back, the epic journey started on October 13, 2022 and continued for 11 days and one hour without the bird landing once,” the Guiness World Records stated.

The distance covered is equivalent to two and a half trips between London and New York, or approximately one-third of the planet’s full circumference.

This isn’t the first time that bar-tailed godwits have hit the headlines for their marathon migrations. This five-month-old bird smashed the previous record, set by another of its species in 2020, by over 350 km (217 miles). That godwit in turn had out-flown another that flew for 11,500 kilometres (932 miles) in 2007.

Bar-tailed godwits are not the only long-haul travellers in the bird world. Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) can regularly fly even greater distances over the course of a year.