Snakes can fly and they don’t need a plane to do it. The freaky freaky beasts flatten their bodies and angle their bodies so they glide through the air, which make them capable of flying from tree to tree.
Virginia Tech’s biomechanist Jake Socha have discovered the mechanism, analysing video frames and creating a computer model that explains how the glide through the air, saving distances as long as 15 meters. According to Socha:
Our work contributes to this basic understanding of this really unusual way of gliding flight. There’s nothing else that does anything close to this — in the engineering world or the biological world.
He probably said that with Samuel L. Jackson’s voice. Socha also says that the glide model could be used in making better, smaller, more efficient flying machines. [The Scientist]
stevjosco
Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:52 AMAnd the f#@kers can swim as well!
About the only thing they can’t do is run and count on their fingers.
Steve
Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 9:05 AM“Socha also says that the glide model could be used in making better, smaller, more efficient flying machines.”
yes but is COULD also be used in making pajamas for horses.
Osiris
Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 10:51 AMSorry mate, scientist have known about GLIDING snakes for a very long time. This chap has analyzed the mechanism, that all. Bad headline.
LucasF
Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:52 PMWhilst it may have been slightly misleading, it was completely hilarious…so who cares.