Animals That Travel The Longest Distances - Great Animation
- 5 years ago
Amazingly Long Animal Migrations - These creatures walk, swim, or fly in record-setting fashion. --- Gray whales ---In early April, a team of marine biologists recorded the longest mammal migration in history. The discovery was made by tracking seven Pacific gray whales, a gravely endangered species about which little is known. Only three of the seven tags lasted long enough for scientists to track, but that was enough to yield incredible findings. A 9-year-old female dubbed Varvara swam across the Pacific Ocean, from Sakhalin Island in Russia to Baja, Mexico, and back. That’s a 14,000-mile journey over a relatively quick 172 days.
Humpback whales
These guys are also known to really go the distance. The annual migration is more than 5000 miles, swimming at speeds between 3 and 9 mph. After that, a vacation is pretty well deserved. Props to the elephant seal as well, another marine mammal that travels thousands of miles annually on not one, but two migratory trips.
Birds
Whales are top dog in the mammal migration world, but they’ve got nothing on birds. The arctic tern—a small white seabird with a black head and orange beak—jets back and forth between Greenland and Antarctica, traveling about 44,000 miles in the process. It’s not a bad deal for the tiny fliers—the travel gets them two summers a year and more daylight than any other animal on earth.
Sooty shearwaters also log an impressive amount of miles (just over 40,000). And let’s not forget the 4000 other bird species that regularly migrate. After all, birds gotta fly.
Leatherback Sea Turtles
Sea turtles are known for their longevity, but they also do a lot of moving around during their many years on the planet. Leatherback turtles in particular travel more than 10,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean annually and are able to find their way back to the very beach where they were born in order to continue the circle of life.
Salmon
Salmon get migration points for their sheer determination. They’re born in freshwater, but eventually make their way to the sea where they live until it’s time to reproduce. Like turtles, the salmon travel back to the place they were born in order to spawn—except for them, it’s an exceedingly arduous process. The only way to get back upstream is to swim … upstream. The fish fight their way through seawater and freshwater and navigate various channels just to get there. Was that a little too “When I was your age?” Well, after they travel those thousands of miles, using the earth’s magnetic field to find their natal stream, they do their part to continue the species and then they die. So you know, they’re allowed to vent.
Caribou
Of the land-bound mammals, the North American caribou (a.k.a. reindeer) is surprisingly the most mobile, traveling up to 3000 miles every year during migration. The herds travel north in the summer to feast on the blossoming tundra and turn back when the snow returns in the winter.
Music: Uncle Festus by Dhruva Aliman
Humpback whales
These guys are also known to really go the distance. The annual migration is more than 5000 miles, swimming at speeds between 3 and 9 mph. After that, a vacation is pretty well deserved. Props to the elephant seal as well, another marine mammal that travels thousands of miles annually on not one, but two migratory trips.
Birds
Whales are top dog in the mammal migration world, but they’ve got nothing on birds. The arctic tern—a small white seabird with a black head and orange beak—jets back and forth between Greenland and Antarctica, traveling about 44,000 miles in the process. It’s not a bad deal for the tiny fliers—the travel gets them two summers a year and more daylight than any other animal on earth.
Sooty shearwaters also log an impressive amount of miles (just over 40,000). And let’s not forget the 4000 other bird species that regularly migrate. After all, birds gotta fly.
Leatherback Sea Turtles
Sea turtles are known for their longevity, but they also do a lot of moving around during their many years on the planet. Leatherback turtles in particular travel more than 10,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean annually and are able to find their way back to the very beach where they were born in order to continue the circle of life.
Salmon
Salmon get migration points for their sheer determination. They’re born in freshwater, but eventually make their way to the sea where they live until it’s time to reproduce. Like turtles, the salmon travel back to the place they were born in order to spawn—except for them, it’s an exceedingly arduous process. The only way to get back upstream is to swim … upstream. The fish fight their way through seawater and freshwater and navigate various channels just to get there. Was that a little too “When I was your age?” Well, after they travel those thousands of miles, using the earth’s magnetic field to find their natal stream, they do their part to continue the species and then they die. So you know, they’re allowed to vent.
Caribou
Of the land-bound mammals, the North American caribou (a.k.a. reindeer) is surprisingly the most mobile, traveling up to 3000 miles every year during migration. The herds travel north in the summer to feast on the blossoming tundra and turn back when the snow returns in the winter.
Music: Uncle Festus by Dhruva Aliman