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As a human being, I find these feats of navigation and stamina astounding. Human beings cannot do anything like this. These birds are awesome. Still, I find
by wombatmobile 5y ago
As a human being, I find these feats of navigation and stamina astounding.
Human beings cannot do anything like this.
These birds are awesome.
Still, I find it peculiar and somehow off the mark to contextualise one bird's flight as a "world record".
In the bird's world, these are ordinary events. The only standout feature of that flight is that no human had witnessed and recorded anything more superlative.
It's OK that humans enjoy measuring things and celebrating the longest X or the biggest Y or the fastest Z. As I human, I get that.
What's less OK, and somewhat diminishing of the bird's natural majesty, is that if another bird were to fly 2% slower or less far, humans might shrug their shoulders and ask, so what?
- Karsteski 5y agoHuman beings the best long distance runners on the planet. I think that's awesome as well ;)
- demosito666 5y agoThey aren't though, unless you start adding specifically tailored constraints like the run should happen in a very hot place. A trained horse can cover 100+ miles per day with a rider, a husky can run 100+ miles in a sledge, and they will probably outpace humans. Not to mention that only a tiny fraction of humans can even finish a marathon, which is no big deal for most wolves or horses. And camels and maybe ostriches will probably outrun us in hot climate as well (but that I didn't check).
- Karsteski 5y agoHmmm that's fair. Well none of these animals have internet and until they do, I'll continue to find humans just as impressive
- zimpenfish 5y ago> Not to mention that only a tiny fraction of humans can even finish a marathon Depends on the time constraints - I think a large percentage people can finish a marathon within 12 hours, even more if you allow up to 16 hours.
- phonypc 5y agoThat's walking pace though. Humans probably compare even less favourably to other animals if you open it up to the ability to walk marathon distance.
- Sharlin 5y agoHowever, horses are uniquely good at endurance because they have sweat glands all over their body, just like primates do. (And that's of course one of the reasons we domesticated them.) Almost all other mammals fare much worse.
- ejolto 5y agoA trained human can also run 100+ miles per day. The world record is 309.399 km (191.879 miles) for men [1]. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_run https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_run
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- coldcode 5y agoUnless you let the human have a bicycle.
- dghughes 5y agoOur ancestors would jog for hours to chase down prey. The prey had to stop to pant to cool down which it couldn't do while running. I don't know how long it would have taken but at least a few hours seems like a reasonable assumption to wear down the animal prey. Although I don't think even our ancestors could jog for 239 hours straight.
- iamben 5y agoReminds me of the man vs horse races (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon). Man rarely wins unless the weather is hot.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Sharlin 5y agoTo be fair, though, horses are uniquely good at endurance compared to almost all other non-primate mammals. They have sweat glands all over their body just like humans do.
- lobocinza 5y agoAlso the times are relatively close.
- j9461701 5y agowhat about dogs? They can cover nearly 1,000 miles of rough winter terrain in under 2 weeks, as seen in the iditarod. Or if we're looking at long distance travel in hot environments what about camels? I think this "humans can run down any animal with our endurance" stuff is vastly overblown. We're above average, but hardly the best on earth.
- echelon 5y agoDogs can't do endurance running in the heat like we can. Cooling is a limitation for most mammals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis Humans vs horses: https://slate.com/culture/2012/06/long-distance-running-and-evolution-why-humans-can-outrun-horses-but-cant-jump-higher-than-cats.html https://slate.com/culture/2012/06/long-distance-running-and-... Cheetahs, wolves : https://www.businessinsider.com/how-humans-evolved-to-be-best-endurance-runners-2018-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-humans-evolved-to-be-bes... We're really good at running.
- lm28469 5y ago> Human beings cannot do anything like this We're quite good when trained, but the average diet/lifestyle doesn't allow us to come anywhere close to our potential
- PostOnce 5y ago> Human beings cannot do anything like this. Well, I've flown that far in a day, carrying a couple of suitcases, but it took that bird a week and a half with no luggage.
- pantulis 5y agoAlso it was not carrying any liquids.
- eCa 5y ago> Well, I've flown that far in a day To be the nitpick: You have been flown that far in a day. On a species-level perhaps an equally impressive feat, but on an individual level I’m more impressed by the birdie..
- jjoonathan 5y agoIf we're going to do accounting on an individual level then a tiny fraction of individuals are responsible for flying everyone else (and their luggage and their mail and...) which is super impressive again.
- zaarn 5y agoA human can fly on their own lift provided you accelerate the human fast enough (bricks fly too after all). Not very comfortable though.
- e-clinton 5y ago> Human beings cannot do anything like this. Yes, and birds are lousy coders. We all have our strengths.
- kijin 5y agoThey may be lousy coders, but they're quite good at carrying data as per RFC 1149.
- wefarrell 5y agoHuman beings cannot do anything like this. The most comparable feat of navigation and stamina that humans can do is sailing around the world alone. Some sailors will sleep for no more than 20 minutes at a time scattered throughout the day.
- Lio 5y agoHumans are pretty mind blowing animals too. About the closest thing I can think of are the Polynesian canoeists who first crossed the vast distances of the Pacific to reach isolated island chains and they must have done that more than once too. Those guys were some very special people if you ask me.