chrysopelea, The incredible Flying Snake

The thought of a flying snake is not in the minds of many people other than the people of Southeast Asia and India. They are used to seeing the famous Chrysopelea or the flying snake. You may hold the opinion that this snake has wings but it is not true. The fact is that the chrysopelea does not fly; rather it glides swiftly in an inconceivable way from one tree to another tree. If you get lucky to catch the action, you marvel at the wonders of Mother Nature.

The chrysopelea is not a poisonous snake but it is fond of biting aggressively if intimidated. The mechanism behind its flying is quite simple. The flying snake crawls to the very end of the tree and then form a J like shape as it gets its bearing right. The Chrysopelea has to be very exact in terms of the landing position before getting on the air. Once all this is done it will catapult itself and shape up into a flying posture to make this act possible. These are some of the undocumented acts that happen in the jungle and accessing such unique  actions is quite hard. Getting a glimpse of such an act becomes hard but exhilarating.

There are many chrysopelea species that include paradise tree snake, ornate tree snake and the banded flying snake .They posses’ very different characters but they all fall under the chrysopelea species. It is essential to note that the smaller of this species are the ones that can glide for a longer distance in comparison to the longer snakes. Isn’t it wonderful to watch the chrysopelea glide just like a bird? The view of the chrysopelea gliding is a mind blowing  scene in the animal kingdom worth visiting the jungle for.