Longest Animal Migrations
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Longest Animal MigrationsThe Arctic tern (≈70,000 km) makes by far the longest migration of any animal, flying from Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctic feeding waters and back each year - over a lifetime, equivalent to several round trips to the Moon. The sooty shearwater (≈65,000 km) is a close second, and both are seabirds that exploit flight's efficiency to cover oceanic distances. A large gap separates them from the marine mammals and reptiles: the humpback whale (≈22,000 km) and leatherback turtle (≈20,000 km) manage roughly a third as far, limited by the slower pace of swimming. The land-bound caribou (≈5,000 km) makes the longest terrestrial migration but travels a fraction of the airborne champions' distance, underlining how flight unlocks journeys no walking or swimming animal can match.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Visual Capitalist / migration tracking studies
- Coverage
- 5 entities · 5 observations
- Measure
- Approximate Annual Migration (km)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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