Researchers Reveal the Mystery Behind the 'Flying' Snakes

A certain species of snakes manage to "fly" by flattening their bodies, according to a latest study.

Snakes, belonging to the Genus Chrysopelea are skilled gliders and have been observed to fly from tree to tree in rainforests of Southeast Asia.

These snakes flatten their bodies and curve it into an S shape, which allows them to glide, according to researchers at Virginia Tech Wake Forest University.

The team led by Dr Jake Socha found that the snakes shift their ribs to widen their body. The cross-section of the snake's body looks like an arched semi-circle, according to the Independent.

The team then conducted an experiment to check the efficiency of this shape in helping the snake glide. In the test, researchers used a plastic copy of the snake's body and put it in a tank filled with water.

"The water flowed over it and we measured the forces on the model and we also visualized the flow movement in the water using lasers and high-speed cameras," explained Prof Socha, BBC reported.

Researchers found that the unique shape helped the snake model glide, rather than fall flat.

The team added that they haven't fully understood how the snake manages to change its shape mid-air.

"If you make a rough estimate of the lift to drag ratio for the real animal, it appears to do better than what we got from this study. So even though this shape produced more lift than we were expecting, it doesn't get us the glide performance that snakes can attain, giving us a hint that there is something in what the animal is doing aerodynamically that is not captured by the cross-sectional shape alone," Socha said in a news release.

The study is published in The Journal of Experimental Biology.