Trekking nearly a whole day by plane to Australia might seem like a long-haul flight, but that’s got nothing on what the common swift is capable of. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Lots of us get pretty restless after just a few hours, and we’re just sat on our asses. Imagine having to hold your arms out to the side for 10 straight months in order to stay in the air – that’s how long the record-breaking common swift can fly for without landing.

Though Welsh ornithologist Ronald Lockley had suggested that common swifts might be capable of such a feat back in the 1970s, it wasn’t until 2016 that a group of researchers from Lund University in Sweden were able to confirm this theory.

To do so, the team followed 13 adult c

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