RCReptiles.com

[PyMama]

Interesting read!

Flying Snake



Flying Snake range Fast Facts
Type: Reptile
Diet: Carnivore
Size: Up to 4 ft (1.2 m)
Did you know? The paradise tree snake is one of the smaller flying snakes and the best glider. It’s been known to travel up to 330 feet (100 meters) in the air.

The image of airborne snakes may seem like the stuff of nightmares (or a certain Hollywood movie), but in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia it is reality.

Flying snake is a misnomer, since, barring a strong updraft, these animals can’t actually gain altitude. They’re gliders, using the speed of free fall and contortions of their bodies to catch the air and generate lift.

Once thought to be more parachuters than gliders, recent scientific studies have revealed intricate details about how these limbless, tube-shaped creatures turn plummeting into piloting. To prepare for take-off, a flying snake will slither to the end of a branch, and dangle in a J shape. It propels itself from the branch with the lower half of its body, forms quickly into an S, and flattens to about twice its normal width, giving its normally round body a concave C shape which can trap air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns. Flying snakes are technically better gliders than their more popular mammalian equivalents, the flying squirrels.

There are five recognized species of flying snake, found from western India to the Indonesian archipelago. Knowledge of their behavior in the wild is limited, but they are thought to be highly arboreal, rarely descending from the canopy. The smallest species reach about 2 feet (61 centimeters) in length and the largest grow to 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Their diets are variable depending on their range, but they are known to eat rodents, lizards, frogs, birds, and bats. They are mildly venomous snakes, but their tiny, fixed rear fangs make them harmless to humans.

Scientists don’t know how often or exactly why flying snakes fly, but it’s likely they use their aerobatics to escape predators, to move from tree to tree without having to descend to the forest floor, and possibly even to hunt prey.

One species, the twin-barred tree snake, is thought to be rare in its range, but flying snakes are otherwise quite abundant and have no special conservation status.

Video;
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/reptiles-animals/lizards/flying_reptiles.html


PY

[nikolay]

Sweet very interesting post PyMama..love it

[Buck_99]

There's an old episode of "Austin Stevens: Snakemaster" where he spends the whole episode in search of the Golden Flying Snake. They're really fast.

[deborahbroadus]

Very interesting Py! I didn't know snakes could fly..well, not like that..I have seen a few launch themselves at prey but not for any great distance and height.

[PyMama]

Im just wondering what/how their bones are made of.....well.....when they land and from the video...any other snake would have had all her ribs and back bone broken. They arent landing on soft surface..

[MikeandSlick]

[PyMama]

[Buck_99]

It looks to me like they're distributing the impact throughout the entire length of their bodies. There's a little "give" at the point of impact, and then the body wraps around the branch like a whip. This would be a little like a martial artist taking a fall to the mat, rolling and slapping the mat to spread the force of the impact.

[MikeandSlick]

I can't find anything besides a lot of pages saying the same thing "...and always seem to land without injury." There's no explanation that I can find.
The ribs do flatten out though. So it can be compared to slapping an open hand on a table, rather then curling your fingers inwards and hitting the table with the same motion, which could hurt. As far as avoiding internal injury, they must have some adaptation in that department, but I can't find anything about it.

[MikeandSlick]