瑞典科学家发现一种学名叫做“中沙锥”的鸟儿堪称动物世界中的长途飞行之王，能够一次性不间断地飞行数千公里，这是首次发现鸟儿具有如此强的长途飞行能力。

瑞典隆德大学等机构研究人员在新一期英国《生物学快报》杂志上报告了这一发现。他们跟踪了一些在北欧和俄罗斯栖息，但迁徙到非洲过冬的“中沙锥”的飞行情况。

结果发现，这些鸟儿具备不间断超长距离飞行的能力，比如有一只“中沙锥”曾在48小时内飞行约4500公里路程，这种长距离飞行能力已经可以与一些飞机相比。

研究人员认为，“中沙锥”的长途飞行能力可能是长期自然选择的结果。具备长途飞行能力的“中沙锥”，不仅能够躲避迁徙途中的天敌，也能减少因在陌生地区停留感染疾病的机会，生存下来并繁衍后代的可能性大增。久而久之，长途飞行能力成为“中沙锥”种群的普遍能力。

原文出处：

Biology Letters    DOI： 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0343

Great flights by great snipes: long and fast non-stop migration over benign habitats

Klaassen, Raymond H. G.; Alerstam, Thomas; Carlsson, Peter; Fox, James W.

Migratory land birds perform extreme endurance flights when crossing ecological barriers, such as deserts, oceans and ice-caps.When travelling over benign areas, birds are expected to migrate by shorter flight steps, since carrying the heavy fuel loadsneeded for long non-stop flights comes at considerable cost. Here, we show that great snipes Gallinago media made long and fast non-stop flights (4300–6800 km in 48–96 h), not only over deserts and seas but also over wide areas ofsuitable habitats, which represents a previously unknown migration strategy among land birds. Furthermore, the great snipesachieved very high ground speeds (15–27 m s?1), which was not an effect of strong tailwind support, and we know of no other animal that travels this rapidly over sucha long distance. Our results demonstrate that some migratory birds are prepared to accept extreme costs of strenuous exerciseand large fuel loads, even when stopover sites are available along the route and there is little tailwind assistance. A strategyof storing a lot of energy before departure, even if migration is over benign habitats, may be advantageous owing to differentialconditions of fuel deposition, predation or infection risk along the migration route.