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True powered flight has evolved only four times — in insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding, by contrast, has evolved dozens of times, because the halfway step of slowing and steering a fall is useful and relatively easy to build. None of these animals can gain height or stay up indefinitely; they trade altitude for distance and a soft landing.
100+ m glides on the most complete membrane of any mammal
The colugo of Southeast Asia has a gliding membrane running from its neck to its fingertips, toe tips, and the end of its tail — even webbed between the digits. It covers over 100 metres losing only a few metres of height, and can carry a clinging infant the whole way.
Full colugo guide →A limbless glider that turns its body into a wing
It sucks in its belly and flares its ribs to flatten its whole body into a concave ribbon, then undulates through the air — actively steering — for up to 30 metres between trees. It glides better than its rounder relatives despite having no wings or membranes at all.
Full paradise flying snake guide →Wings made of ribs
Draco lizards glide on a membrane stretched over greatly elongated ribs that fold flat against the body when not in use, crossing gaps of 10 metres or more between rainforest trunks and rarely coming to the ground.
Full flying dragon (draco lizard) guide →Glides clear of the water for up to 400 m in hops
It builds up speed underwater, breaks the surface, and glides on stiff wing-like pectoral fins. By dipping its still-beating tail lobe back into the water it can relaunch without fully landing, chaining glides to escape tuna and marlin.
Full flying fish guide →Parachuting on four webbed feet
This tree frog has enormous webbed hands and feet and skin flaps along its limbs. Spreading all four feet turns them into parachutes, letting it glide and steer down from the canopy to breeding pools 15 metres or more below.
Full wallace's flying frog guide →A marsupial with a squirrel-glider body plan
The sugar glider has a membrane (patagium) from wrist to ankle and glides up to about 50 metres between trees, using its long bushy tail as a rudder. It is a marsupial that evolved the same solution as the unrelated flying squirrels.
Full sugar glider guide →The largest gliding animal, at up to 100 m per glide
Australia's biggest gliding marsupial sails on a membrane that runs from elbow to ankle, holding its forearms bent in the air and steering with its long furry tail. It can cross 100 metres in one glide while losing very little height, moving between the gum trees whose leaves are almost its whole diet.
Full greater glider guide →Parachutes on four fully webbed feet
This bright green tree frog of India's Western Ghats has huge, fully webbed hands and feet and skin fringes along its limbs. Splaying all four feet turns them into parachutes, letting it glide at a shallow angle across gaps of nine to twelve metres and steer toward a landing on a trunk.
Full malabar gliding frog guide →Glides on body flaps, webbed feet, and a fringed tail
A Southeast Asian gecko with loose skin flaps along its flanks, full webbing between its toes, and a broad fringed tail. Launched or knocked from a branch, it flattens and spreads all of it into a rough parachute, gliding at a shallow angle to a lower trunk and steering with its tail. The same flaps make it vanish against bark.
Full flying gecko guide →The smallest gliding mammal — 25 m glides steered by a feather-shaped tail
A mouse-sized Australian marsupial, only about 12 grams, with a small elbow-to-knee membrane and a stiff, flat tail fringed with long hairs like the barbs of a feather. It uses the tail as a rudder and airbrake to steer glides of up to 28 metres, and its moist, ridged toe pads let it run up a pane of glass.
Full feathertail glider guide →Flying animals generate their own lift and thrust by flapping, which lets them take off from level ground, gain altitude, and stay airborne as long as their energy lasts. Gliding animals cannot do any of that. A glider must first climb to a high starting point, then it launches and uses wings, membranes, flattened body parts, or fins to slow its descent and convert some of the fall into forward travel. Its flight path only ever goes downward relative to the air, and it ends when the animal reaches the ground or another tree. Gliding is sometimes split further into "parachuting" (steep descent, mainly slowing the fall) and true "gliding" (a shallow angle covering real horizontal distance).
Because tall, closely spaced trees create the ideal conditions for it. A rainforest canopy offers plenty of height to launch from, many landing targets within glide range, and a strong incentive to stay off the ground, where predators are common and travel is slow. Gliding lets an animal move quickly from tree to tree, escape a predator by leaping into space, and save the energy of climbing all the way down one trunk and up the next. This is why Southeast Asian rainforests in particular have evolved gliding mammals, lizards, snakes, frogs, and even gliding ants and geckos, often in the same patch of forest.
By sheer distance and efficiency, the colugo — it has the largest gliding surface of any mammal and loses very little height over a long glide. For control, the paradise flying snake and Wallace's flying frog are remarkable because they actively steer and manoeuvre in the air rather than just falling in a fixed posture. Flying squirrels and sugar gliders are the most familiar. And the flying fish is the only glider that launches from water rather than a height, using speed instead of gravity to get airborne.