Fastest animal in a dive

What to remember

It all happens in the dive. The peregrine falcon does not set this record in level flight: it climbs high, then drops almost vertically. During that hunting stoop it reached 389 km/h (242 mph), or 108 m/s.

It is both the fastest bird and the fastest member of the whole animal kingdom. In a stoop it exceeds 320 km/h. Relative to its size, with a maximum length of 58 cm, it covers 186 body lengths per second, the equivalent of a human running at 170 m/s.

About the size of a crow, the falcon has a blue-grey back, barred white underparts and a black head, and females are considerably larger than males. Its prey is almost exclusively other birds. It nests mainly on cliffs, and its breeding range runs from the Arctic tundra to the tropics.