A tall tropical forest canopy at dusk, with mist between the tree crowns and soft fading light
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.
doodleflier

WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS

No engine,
still airborne.

GLIDE tree to tree

  • Spread a wing of skin
  • Steer in the air
  • Brake before landing
  • How gliders get from tree to tree

Some of the best fliers never flap.

Gliding is unpowered flight: the animal falls through the air in a controlled way. It has evolved in mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, spiders, fish and squid, and researchers are still working out how they steer and land.

Updated

Compare gliders

THE SHORT ANSWER

Gliding is common,
flapping is rare.

Powered flight evolved four times.
Gliding evolved again and again.

COLUGOS

The champion gliders

Southeast Asian colugos can glide more than the length of two football fields, make 90-degree turns and land gently on a trunk.

Compare gliders

FLYING SQUIRRELS

Square wings of skin

A flap of skin called the patagium runs from forearms to hind legs and produces lift. Small winglets may help steady the glide.

See the numbers

SNAKES

Flying without limbs

Paradise tree snakes flatten their bodies into a wing and ripple as they fall. A 3D model showed the ripples keep them from tumbling.

How snakes glide

A QUICK GLIDER CHECK

From ants
to giant squirrels.

Pick a glider to see one fact from the research. The bar shows body size: gliding works across more than four orders of magnitude of body mass.

Glider check

Choose a glider
Gliding antAbout 0.05 g

Ants of the genus Cephalotes, at around 0.05 grams, sit at the small end of the gliding animals researchers have studied.

American flying squirrel2 to 4 ounces

One of the two North and Central American species weighs a mere two to four ounces and often nests in attics and eaves.

ColugoAbout 75 cm long

Its skin flaps stretch between all four limbs and even its toes, and when fully spread reach the size of a large doormat.

Japanese giant flying squirrelUp to 5 pounds

Two feet from head to tail tip. One was recorded gliding for nearly 160 feet, coasting low and slow.

Red giant flying squirrelAbout 3.2 kg

The 2023 review puts it at the large end of a gliding size range that spans over four orders of magnitude, from ants to this squirrel.

Sources: Khandelwal, Ross, Dong and Socha, Convergence in Gliding Animals (2023); UC Berkeley news (2008); Smithsonian Magazine, How Squirrels Fly.

Based on Khandelwal et al. (2023), UC Berkeley (2008) and Smithsonian research on gliding animals.

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

Long glides,
soft landings.

One figure on distance,
one on why braking matters.

≈ 150 m

Distance covered in a single glide

Colugos cover nearly 150 metres in a single glide. Gliding costs more energy than climbing through the canopy but lets them travel about ten times faster.

DISTANCE · COLUGOS

28× body weight

Impact force without aerial braking

Force measurements suggest flying squirrels would hit up to 28 times their body weight on landing if they could not slow down in the air.

LANDING · FLYING SQUIRRELS

Colugos push off harder for long jumps but quickly reach a steady speed once spread out, so their landing force stays about the same however far they glide.

FOUR STEPS IN A GLIDE

Launch, spread,
steer, land.

A slender green tree snake coiled along a branch in a sunlit tropical forest
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Gliders differ in shape, but the research shows the same basic sequence, from a squirrel to a snake.

  1. Launch

    Colugos push off more forcefully for long jumps. Paradise tree snakes spring up and out from a J-shaped loop.

  2. Spread a wing

    Mammals stretch a skin membrane between their limbs. The snake flattens its whole body, except the tail, into a morphing wing.

  3. Steer

    Colugos can make 90-degree turns and even fold their membrane to push through dense leaves, then open it again.

  4. Brake and land

    Changing posture to brake just before landing reduces impact forces and the risk of injury on long glides.

FLYING SNAKES

Ripples that
keep it steady.

A flying squirrel gliding between trees at night with the skin between its legs stretched out like a wing
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Snakes of the genus Chrysopelea are the only known limbless vertebrates capable of flight. Virginia Tech researchers measured more than 100 live glides of the paradise tree snake to build a 3D model of it in the air.

When they switched off the snake's side-to-side undulation in the model, the virtual snake began to tumble. The study, published in Nature Physics in 2020, concluded that aerial undulation improves the snake's rotational stability.

Questions

Questions people ask

Which animals can glide?

On land, gliders live in trees: mammals such as flying squirrels, sugar gliders and colugos, Draco flying lizards and some geckos, flying snakes, flying frogs, and even some spiders and ants. At sea, the only known gliders are flying fish and squid. A 2023 review counts gliding in mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, fishes and cephalopods.

Which mammals can glide, and which can fly?

Among mammals, only bats have flapping, powered flight; the others glide. Muscle-powered flight evolved just four times, in insects, pterosaurs, birds and bats, while gliding arose independently in six lineages of mammals alone, among them flying squirrels, sugar gliders, colugos and marsupial gliders such as feathertail gliders.

What is the largest gliding mammal?

Giant flying squirrels are the heavyweights. A 2023 review of gliding animals puts the red giant flying squirrel, at about 3.2 kg, at the top of a size range that runs down to gliding ants of about 0.05 g. The Japanese giant flying squirrel grows to two feet from head to tail tip, and one was recorded gliding for nearly 160 feet.

Can flying squirrels really fly?

No. They glide. Smithsonian researchers point out that gliding mammals produce no thrust; they use a skin membrane called the patagium to sail from tree to tree.

What is a colugo?

A gliding mammal of Southeast Asia, often called a flying lemur though it is not a lemur. It is a close relative of the primates, and its skin flaps stretch between its limbs and toes.

How far can gliding animals travel?

Colugos can cover nearly 150 metres in one glide. A Japanese giant flying squirrel was recorded gliding for nearly 160 feet.

How many times has gliding evolved?

Far more often than flapping flight, which evolved only four times. In mammals alone, gliding originated independently in six lineages.

Why do animals glide instead of climbing?

A study of colugos found gliding used about one and a half times as much energy as climbing through the canopy, but was about ten times faster, saving time for foraging.

Sources

Where the facts come from

  1. Khandelwal, Ross, Dong and Socha (2023): Convergence in Gliding Animals: Morphology, Behavior, and Mechanics
  2. Virginia Tech News (2020): 3D modelling decodes aerial undulation in flying snake glides
  3. UC Berkeley News (2008): Tracking gliding behaviour in the 'flying' lemur
  4. Nature blogs: Gliding is quick, but hard work
  5. Smithsonian Magazine: How Squirrels Fly

What changed

  • : Added FAQs on which mammals glide and which fly, and on the largest gliding mammal, from sources already cited (Khandelwal, Ross, Dong and Socha 2023, Convergence in Gliding Animals; Smithsonian Magazine, How Squirrels Fly).
  • : Added an answer-first FAQ listing which animals glide, on land and at sea, from Khandelwal, Ross, Dong and Socha (2023), Convergence in Gliding Animals.

ABOUT THIS NAME

Interested in leasing doodleflier.com?

doodleflier.com is part of the DoodleSale portfolio. It isn't in an auction right now, but you can ask about leasing it.

Ask about this name