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posted by martyb on Monday October 31 2016, @07:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the results-are-up-in-the-air dept.

The common swift (Apus apus) is a remarkable bird found all over Europe, northern Asia and Africa. Because it migrates into sub-Saharan Africa, and because roost sites have never been found there, some scientists have speculated that it stays aloft during its entire non-breeding season.

A group of Swedish scientists attached data loggers, light sensors, and accelerometers to thirteen common swifts and monitored them for two years. They found that these birds remain airborne for 10 months of their non-breeding periods. All of the birds were airborne >99% of the time, but several didn't land at all during those 10 months. Their work is being published in the journal Current Biology .

Hedenström says that common swifts have adapted to a low-energy lifestyle, but his team does not yet know whether the birds sleep while aloft. "Most animals suffer dramatically from far less sleep loss," says Niels Rattenborg, a neurobiologist at Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany. "But these birds seem to have found a trick through evolution that allows them to get by on far less sleep."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @05:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @05:34PM (#421322)

    When a bird wants to sleep, it just lays onto of another and is carried along.