Wild birds rewrite rules of flight efficiency: Study reveals power of 'free fuel' from the sky
An international study has overturned a longstanding textbook view of how much energy animals use to travel, revealing that flying can sometimes be cheaper than swimming.
An international research team has challenged the conventional wisdom on animal travel efficiency, finding that soaring can be far more energy-efficient than swimming. The Andean condor, for instance, uses just one-fifth the energy per kilometer compared to a similarly-sized trumpeter swan. The key is how these birds harness the natural atmospheric flows around them - condors ride rising currents, flapping their wings for only 0.1% of their flights, while swans flap for nearly 100% of the time.
This new study, published in the journal Science, analyzed the tracking data of 850 birds and bats across 38 species over 17 years, and four years of radar data covering 12 size classes of smaller flying animals. The researchers found that heavy-soaring birds generally flapped less and had lower energy costs, while larger flapping birds were more adaptable to changing conditions at the expense of higher energy expenditure.
Study lead Dr. Martina Scacco explained that the sky offers "free fuel" for flying animals, dramatically reducing the cost of their journeys. These findings could help scientists understand how future climate changes might impact the migration patterns and community establishment of various species.
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