You are viewing this Taxon as classified by:  IUCN threat
status:  Least Concern (LC)  Brief Summary  Read full entry
Brief Summary  The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) is perhaps
best known for its extraordinary annual migration, which is
often cited as the longest seasonal distance traveled by any
animal. It has long been known that the Arctic Tern breeds in
the Arctic and migrates each year to spend the northern winter
at high latitudes in the Southern Ocean. Until recently, what
has been known about the Arctic Tern's migration has come from
limited banding recoveries and at-sea observations. Thanks to
new technology, however, far more detailed data on this small
(<125 grams) bird's annual migration are now available. Egevang
et al. (2010) fitted 11 Arctic Terns with miniature (1.4 gram)
geolocators. They found that the annual distances traveled are,
in fact, even greater than previously believed--more than 80,000
km annually for some individuals. All tracked terns migrated
south to spend the austral summ