---
title: "Flying and gliding animals"
chunk: 5/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_and_gliding_animals"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:46:37.316378+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Most maneuverable glider ====
Many gliding animals have some ability to turn, but which is the most maneuverable is difficult to assess. Even paradise tree snakes, Chinese gliding frogs, and gliding ants have been observed as having considerable capacity to turn in the air.

== Flying animals ==

=== Extant ===

==== Insects ====

Pterygota: The first of all animals to evolve flight, they are also the only invertebrates that have evolved flight. As they comprise almost all insects, the species are too numerous to list here. Insect flight is an active research field.

==== Birds ====

Birds (flying, soaring) – Most of the approximately 10,000 living species can fly (flightless birds are the exception). Bird flight is one of the most studied forms of aerial locomotion in animals. See List of soaring birds for birds that can soar as well as fly.

==== Mammals ====

Bats. There are approximately 1,240 bat species, representing about 20% of all classified mammal species. Most bats are nocturnal and many feed on insects while flying at night, using echolocation to home in on their prey.

=== Extinct ===

==== Reptile: Pterosaurs ====
Pterosaurs were the first flying vertebrates, and are generally agreed to have been sophisticated flyers. They had large wings formed by a patagium stretching from the torso to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger. There were hundreds of species, most of which are thought to have been intermittent flappers, and many soarers. The largest known flying animals are pterosaurs.

==== Non-avian dinosaurs ====
Theropods (gliding and flying). There were several species of theropod dinosaur thought to be capable of gliding or flying, that are not classified as birds (though they are closely related). Some species (Microraptor gui, Microraptor zhaoianus, and Changyuraptor) have been found that were fully feathered on all four limbs, giving them four 'wings' that they are believed to have used for gliding or flying. A recent study indicates that flight may have been acquired independently in various different lineages though it may have only evolved in theropods of the Avialae.

== Gliding animals ==

=== Extant ===

==== Insects ====
Gliding bristletails. Directed aerial gliding descent is found in some tropical arboreal bristletails, an ancestrally wingless sister taxa to the winged insects. The bristletails median caudal filament is important for the glide ratio and gliding control
Gliding ants. The flightless workers of these insects have secondarily gained some capacity to move through the air. Gliding has evolved independently in a number of arboreal ant species from the groups Cephalotini, Pseudomyrmecinae, and Formicinae (mostly Camponotus). All arboreal dolichoderines and non-cephalotine myrmicines except Daceton armigerum do not glide. Living in the rainforest canopy like many other gliders, gliding ants use their gliding to return to the trunk of the tree they live on should they fall or be knocked off a branch. Gliding was first discovered for Cephalotes atratus in the Peruvian rainforest. Cephalotes atratus can make 180 degree turns, and locate the trunk using visual cues, succeeding in landing 80% of the time. Unique among gliding animals, Cephalotini and Pseudomyrmecinae ants glide abdomen first, the Forminicae however glide in the more conventional head first manner.
Gliding immature insects. The wingless immature stages of some insect species that have wings as adults may also show a capacity to glide. These include some species of cockroach, mantis, katydid, stick insect and true bug.

==== Spiders ====
Ballooning spiders (parachuting). The young of some species of spiders travel through the air by using silk draglines to catch the wind, as may some smaller species of adult spider, such as the money spider family. This behavior is commonly known as "ballooning". Ballooning spiders make up part of the aeroplankton.

Gliding Selenopid spiders. Directed aerial descent, analogous to that observed in bristletails and ants, has also been observed in arboreal Selenopid spiders in Panama and Peru. Kinematic measurements obtained using a vertical wind tunnel indicated that steering is controlled via the forelegs, while the six remaining legs are held in a fixed posture.

==== Molluscs ====
Flying squid. Several oceanic squids of the family Ommastrephidae, such as the Pacific flying squid, will leap out of the water to escape predators, an adaptation similar to that of flying fish. Smaller squids will fly in shoals, and have been observed to cover distances as long as 50 metres (160 ft). Small fins towards the back of the mantle do not produce much lift, but do help stabilize the motion of flight. They exit the water by expelling water out of their funnel, indeed some squid have been observed to continue jetting water while airborne providing thrust even after leaving the water. This may make flying squid the only animals with jet-propelled aerial locomotion. The neon flying squid has been observed to glide for distances over 30 metres (100 ft), at speeds of up to 11.2 metres per second (37 ft/s; 40 km/h).