Forget snakes on a plane, these flying snakes are real.
There are five species of snake in southeast Asia — not Texas, thankfully — that can glide from tree to tree. The snakes do not have wings, of course, but flatten their bodies to fly from tree to tree, or tree to ground, much as flying squirrels.
Here’s what this looks like on video, made available by New Scientist:
The snakes appear to have developed the ability to travel from tree to tree because it’s much easier to glide than slither down one tree and undulate up the next one. So does this mean the snakes will jump out of trees and attack humans?
No, says Virginia Tech scientist Jake Socha, who has an FAQ on flying snakes. In response to the question of whether they land on people, Socha writes, “Only if you’re directly below them, and I’ve never heard of this happening. There’s no need to worry about snakes falling out of the skies, even if you live in Southeast Asia.”
To humans, the snakes are classified as “harmless.” But I’m not sure I’m thrilled about the evolutionary path snakes are headed down if they’re learning to fly.