A long-haul flight with no breaks or meals: The godwit’s epic journey

I wonder if this evolved while ocean levels were lower, and the physical distances between chunks of land were shorter. And what if there were more islands along the way at some point? Also I wonder what % of godwits do actually fail along the way. I suspect that many "elderly" birds aren't able to make the trip.

>Evolution works through tiny incremental changes, but this flight sounds like an all-or-nothing scenario.

I never confirmed one way or the other, but I'm fairly positive evolution operates by large sudden changes followed by incremental improvements/optimizations -- it's difficult to explain many "weird" traits through incremental improvements, because most of them would get stuck in local maxima's before achieving any real benefit over the prior state.

Like you can't evolve a third arm by slowly iterating towards it, from a lump to a stump to a limb to a functional limb; it'd be entirely a loss until it becomes fully functional. You have to grow a shitty yet complete third arm first, but not so shitty that it doesn't offer benefit, and then iteratively improve it into a pretty nice arm

Not sure about migratory birds in particular. But being able to survive without food for long periods is clearly a good trait. It has evolved across plants and animals to a lesser or greater degree. That trait can team up with another. For example an animal that can dig can hybernate underground. An animal that can fly can journey to find food or a mate. It may start by flying a short distance across land and slowly build up the distance over successive generations. Then it could learn to follow the coast to find better food. Or develop abilities for navigation. Or an instinct to fly when the days get short and be less distracted by food. Slowly but surely the benefit of flying outweighs the benefit of staying at a food source. The travel gets longer and longer until it is crossing thousands of miles.

Air currents provide most of the flight's energy.

Yes, this should be impossible -- scientists have no idea how they do it:

"Current models say the birds should conk out after three or four days, yet they fly for more than a week. “We can’t explain the physiology that allows them to do this,” Dr. Guglielmo said. “We know what the energy costs should be from wind tunnel experiments, but when we try to use our models, the energy costs we know they used are much lower.” The birds use half or less of the energy expected."

“Are they going into a suspended animation state when they are doing these monster flights?” Dr. Guglielmo asked. “I don’t think they are in a normal physiological state when they are doing this,”

Thermals?

At one point TFA seems to indicate they lose 50% of their weight, dropping from 2lbs to 1lbs.

I just asked the same question -- it would be interesting to see how long ago these land masses were close enough together and the rate at which they moved apart over time.

If you count direct flights with stops (eg, it stops, but you stay on the plane), then the longest on an LCC is French Bee that'll take you from Paris to Papeete (Tahiti) via LA. Food not included on the Basic Fare, with a scheduled duration of 19:55 to fly 15,728 km.

Probably Canadian.

Yeah, the idea that they are a total evolutionary success only makes sense if you start by assuming that they must be a total evolutionary success. It makes just as much sense to say they are a brilliant example of intelligent design.

The advantage with the bird is that it doesn't constantly shill you duty-free and in-flight shopping.