Flying snake the flying snake (Chrysopelea paradisi) lives in the rain forests of Southeast Asia.

The results, just published in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, show not only that flying snakes are surprisingly good aviators but also that they employ some complex aerodynamic tricks.

In order to understand how they do what they do, Socha and his colleagues recently studied Chrysopelea paradisi snakes as they launched themselves off a branch at the top of a 15-meter-tall tower.