Look who’s flying!
All our lives we have grown up knowing that birds are the only creatures who can move up in the air. But there are a host of other animal species in the world who are efficient fliers. Here are three animals who can fly…
Flying with their hands
Bats do something unique — they fly not with their arms but with their hands. A bat’s wing is a miracle of flight engineering, complete with thumb and four fingers and self-tensioning skin in between. No other type of wing gives this level of control. Their innovative wing design allows bats to cover huge distances to feed, fly fast to evade predators and manoeuvre tightly in their crowded caves where hundreds of thousands of baby bats huddle together for warmth.
Snakes up in the air
How scary does that sound? But it’s true that the paradise tree snakes can remain suspended in air. The tropical rainforests of Borneo are home to these reptiles. Even though a snake cannot actually fly, it does something very different. It glides using the speed of the free fall and contorts its bodies to generate lift. By holding on with their tail, these tree snakes can cross a gap with 90% of their body unsupported. Remarkably, just after launch, the snakes throw their ribs forward, flattening their body into a very special shape called an ‘aerofoil’. Only about a metre in length, these snakes are known to cover a distance as long as 100 metres.
The flying cats
In South Africa, the caracal is a cat has the unique ability to catch birds in flight. You could forgive a bird for believing it is safely out of reach but the caracal is perfectly designed to catch it. Its front is smaller and lightweight but its back legs are built like a booster rocket, 30% longer and with twice the muscle mass. This design maximises the caracal’s speed on take-off and, as it leaves the earth, the speed gradually increases.