The World’s Top 10 Strangest Flying Animals
I have always loved flying. Sadly not with my own wings, but I love hang-gliding, being in an aeroplane, or just dreaming about it. But I have to wonder why I am that way. After all, us humans are not supposed to fly, in fact it is said that we all evolved from fish! But we are not the only ones on this planet with dreams of flying, there are many, many creatures out there that no-one has told them that they shouldn’t fly, but that doesn’t stop them from doing it…
The World’s Top 10 Most Unusual Flying Animals
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Flying Manta Ray
10 – Flying Ray: Mobula
Manta Rays seen underwater are beautiful and highly graceful creatures that can can grow to be rather large indeed. But they make this top 10 because they have been studied soaring over 3 meters upwards into the air! While they might not been the softest of landings, seeing one fly (or glide) would be quite a sight!
Flying Possum (Sugar glider)
9 – Flying Possum: Petaurus breviceps
Often Called sugar glides because of their preference for sugary nectarous foods, they have the ability to glide through the air for up to 12 meters, but sadly these cute little marsupials don’t get to glide (or fly) for long because they only live for about 4-5 years! Bless em.
Flying (Wingless) Ants
8 – Gliding Ant: Cephalotes atratus
These are not to be confused with winged, real flying ants. These ants while completely wingless will often glide from tree to tree in search and retrieval of food and resources. The strangest and most scary part about these ants is that they have often been seen gliding in large groups!
Flying Lizard
7 – Flying Lizard: Draco volans
Often called the flying dragons, these lizards can often grow to lengths of up to 8 inches, but more often they are less than 2 inches in size. But they have often been seen flying (or gliding) over entire widths of rivers and forestry sections.
Flying Frog
6 – Flying Frog: Polypedates
While it does have the ability to achieve gliding flight, it doesn’t acctualy have wings! Instead it has full webbing in between its enlarged hands and feet making it a sort of gliding mulit-directional drone.
Flying Lemur
5 – Flying Lemur: Cynocephalidae
The Colugo is sometimes known as the Flying Lemur. They are nocturnal, herbivorous inhabitants of the south-east Asian rain forests and would be quite a sight to see, because fully stretched they can be almost 2 meters squared!!!
Flying Fish
4 – Flying Fish: Exocoetidae
The Exocoetidae is one of the most common types of Flying Fish, but there are many others.They have been well known to fly (or glide) up to 200 meters or more! The most noticeable aspect about this animal is the fact that it has 4 wings rather than the normal 2 that many others have.
Flying Squirrel
3 – Flying Squirrel: Pteromyini
While the flying squirrel is not capable of powered flight as such, it has been known to glide between trees of lengths up to 90 meters. Studies do show that these flying squirrels might well have originated 18–20 million years ago!
Flying Snake
2 – The Golden Flying Snake: Chrysopelea ornata
The Golden flying tree snake (Chrysopelea ornata) is a golden coloured snake found in South and Southeast Asia. It is very thin and while it might not fly as such, it is more capable of gliding flight. Don’t worry though, it is only mildly venomous.
Japanese flying squid
1 – Japanese flying squid: Todarodes pacificus
There have been numerous sightings of this type of Japanese squid “flying” above the ocean’s surface. It does this by releasing a high-pressured water jet for propulsion, and then spreads its fins like wings to glide above the water. But it does all that at a mind blowing 11 meters per second! Blink and you really will miss it.
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