The world's heaviest soaring bird flaps its wings for only 1% of the time during flight, according to new research.
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00:00Getting off the ground can be a little rough for the heaviest soaring bird in the world, but once in the air, it's smooth sailing.
00:11A team of researchers tagged eight young Andean condors with biologging devices or daily diaries, allowing them to capture over 230 hours of flight time.
00:20They discovered that the birds, which can weigh up to 35 pounds, spent 99% of the time gliding and soaring on winds and thermal updrafts,
00:28and flapped their wings for only 1% of the time, and most of that was for takeoff.
00:33Researchers say one condor flew for more than five hours, covering over 100 miles, by just using air currents, never beating its wings once.
00:41And since none were adult condors, they believe relatively inexperienced birds can fly for hours with a minimal need to flap.
00:49Researchers say flapping their wings was about 30 times greater than their resting metabolic cost,
00:54which is possibly similar in energy use as sprinting for mammals.
00:58The young birds even skillfully navigated through complex air flows over mountains with very little movement.
01:04They say thermal updrafts act like lava lamps, with bubbles of hot air rising from the ground,
01:09and condors risk having to make an unexpected landing.
01:12The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
01:16The National Academy of Sciences.
01:20The National Academy of Sciences.
01:21The National Academy of Sciences.