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Science Quickly

Frigate Bird Flights Last Months

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2016

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Great frigate birds may stay aloft for up to two months, eating and sleeping on the wing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:05.8

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0:11.0

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0:19.6

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0:22.7

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

0:33.5

This is Scientific American 60-second science. I'm Julia Rosen. Got a minute? Great frigate birds are

0:41.3

extraordinary creatures. They're seabirds with six foot wingspans, yet they only weigh about three pounds.

0:47.8

Their preferred food, flying fish, which they pluck out of the air above the water's surface. Frigate

0:53.3

birds' feathers aren't waterproof, so landing on the water to fish is a no-go.

0:57.4

Now scientists have discovered that great frigate birds do something else amazing.

1:01.6

They can fly for up to two months at a time without landing.

1:05.3

Researchers already knew that these birds took extended trips over the Indian and Pacific oceans to feed.

1:10.6

But in a new study,

1:11.8

scientists used tracking devices to follow the movement and vital signs of birds from the

1:16.2

island of Europa near Madagascar. They discovered that the birds have a highly specialized

1:21.2

strategy for staying aloft. When they are traveling most of their time, they flap very

1:26.9

unfrequently their wings. Henri Weimer's

1:29.2

Scurge, an ecologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. In fact, what they are doing,

1:34.9

they are doing a sort of a roller coaster flight, so they take altitude, even they can climb up to

1:42.6

three or four thousand meters, and when they climb, they do not

1:46.3

flap the wing at all.

1:47.7

Weimer's Kirch and his colleagues found that the birds climb currents of rising air

...

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