Snakes don’t really fly. However, if you ever go to Southeast Asia, you might see a snake flying over your head! Snakes don’t have wings, so how do they manage to fly?
The answer is that these snakes are not really flying- they are merely gliding from one tree to another. A flying snake launches itself at high speed from a perch on a tree, raises its limbs and flattens its body to form a kind of parachute. It can’t fly up-only downwards. It may even swish and contort itself while in flight so that it can control where it lands.
Flying snakes hunt their prey in the air, crushing small animals with their powerful jaws. Did you know that a flying snake can glide as much as 24 metres in the air?
