Flying is one of the ways that animals move, but not everyone can do it. To fly it is necessary to have physical characteristics that allow flight. The human being, through the observation of aerial animals, has taken centuries to create a machine that flies, for example, like a bird.
Only a few groups of animals have the real ability to fly, although if we look at it from the perspective of species, most of the animal species that exist on the planet fly, insects. In this article on our site we will learn what are aerial animals, their characteristics and some examples of flying animals.
What are flying animals or aerial animals?
In general, flying animals and aerial animals are synonymous, although there are exceptions that we will show throughout the article in which "flying" and "aerial" do not mean the same thing. Regardless of this fact, aerial animals are those that use flight as a locomotion mechanism For some animals this is their only way of moving, but many others used as an escape route in the presence of a predator.
Certain animals spend most of their lives flying, performing all their vital functions in the air: eating, interacting with their environment and others, or reproducing. For them, flying is essential to live. Other animals only acquire the ability to fly when they reach their adult stage. Some species are capable of flying long distances, such as migratory animals, others only need to fly short distances.
Each animal species or group of animals has a different mechanics to be able to move through flight, therefore, they will have different but similar characteristics, since the ultimate goal is the same: to fly.
Are gliding animals aerial animals?
This is the exception that we mentioned in the previous section, in which "aerial" and "flying" are not used as synonymous terms. Animals that glide are considered aerial but not flying animals This is so because they cannot fly but they can move through the air. To do this, these animals have small and light bodies and a very thin skin membrane that joins the extremities. In this way, when jumping they stretch their legs and use this membrane to glide. Within this group we find both mammals and reptiles.
Characteristics of aerial animals
Each flying animal species has its own way of flying according to its physical characteristics, but most of these animals must have a series of common attributes that allow flight:
- Wings: All flying animals have wings. In some cases, these wings are modifications of the forelimbs of the body, such as in birds or flying mammals (bats), where the bones have been modified throughout evolution, providing the capacity or improving it. Other animals have evolved wings, due to what is known as evolutionary convergence, that is, due to similar environmental pressures. This is the case of insects.
- Low weight: For an animal to fly, it must not be very heavy. Birds have reduced the weight of their bones by increasing their porosity, making them lighter. Flying invertebrates weigh little, since the material from which their exoskeleton is made is very light. Those flying animals that have a greater weight cannot fly long distances because they cannot stay in flight for a long time.
- Heart Capacity: Both the muscles responsible for flight and the heart muscle itself are highly developed in flying animals. The flight spends a lot of energy and a greater amount of oxygen must reach the muscles. For this to happen, the heart rate is very high and the concentrations of hemoglobin in the blood (protein that carries oxygen in the blood) too.
- Aerodynamic shape: The shape of the body is also important. Reducing the resistance that the body exerts against the air serves to be more efficient in flight. Having a less aerodynamic shape does not imply not being able to fly, but it does make it slower.
Types of aerial animals
There are different types of aerial animals depending on the phylum to which they belong. Thus, we have the following types of flying animals:
- Aerial mammals, which are chiroptera or bats. We cannot consider other mammals such as the flying squirrel as a flying animal, but we can consider it as an aerial animal, since it does not really fly, it only plans. The only truly flying mammals are bats.
- Aves, but not all of them are aerial animals, since there are several species that cannot fly due to their weight or lack of wings. Some of the birds that do not fly are kiwis, ostriches or the now extinct dodos.
- I nvertebrates, although only animals belonging to the class Insectahave wings and can fly. In these animals the wings only appear and are functional in adulthood. Some insects do not have wings when they are adults but this is due to an evolutionary adaptation called neoteny or maintenance of juvenile characters.
Examples of aerial animals
As we have mentioned, the vast majority of birds are aerial animals. A very clear example is the swifts These animals, after leaving the nest, spend their entire lives in the airThey feed by opening their bills and hunting mosquitoes, they court their partners while they fly, they can even copulate in the air.
Other examples of aerial animals are:
- The psittacines or parrots are also aerial animals despite being exemplary climbers. Many parrots migrate and, for this, they must have a good ability to fly.
- The hammer-headed fruit bat, the largest species of African bat, like the rest of bats, is an aerial animal. Nocturnal, it spends the daylight hours sleeping and feeds on fruits, but also on domestic birds or scavengers.
- The monarch butterfly is a good example of an aerial animal belonging to the group of insects, because in their life cycle they carry out one of the longest migrations on the planet.
List of animals that fly
Although the above are the aerial animals that we can have most present in our day to day, there are many species of animals that fly that exist. Next, we show a complete list with some of them:
- European bee (Apis mellifera)
- Walking Albatross (Diomedea exulans)
- Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti)
- Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
- Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
- Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)
- German Wasp (Vespula germanica)
- Ruppell's Griffon Vulture (Gyps rueppelli)
- Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus)
- Eagle owl (Bubo bubo)
- Rainbow (Glareola pratincola)
- White Stork (Ciconia ciconia)
- Black stork (Ciconia nigra)
- Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus)
- German cockroach (Blattella germanica)
- Grey Heron (Ardea purpurea)
- Sooty Gull (Larus fucus)
- Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)
- Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus)
- Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor)
- Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)
- White Owl (Tyto alba)
- Orange Skimmer Dragonfly (Pantala flavescens)
- Atlas butterfly (Attacus atlas)
- Black Kite (Milvus migrans)
- Brown Buzzard Bat (Myotis emarginatus)
- Medium Noctule (Nyctalus noctula)
- Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)
- Common Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus)
- Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos)
- Bluethroat Nightingale (Luscinia svecica)
- Medium Serreta (Mergus serrator)
- Common Swift (Apus apus)
- Mongolian Swift (Hirundapus caudacutus)
- Zunzuncito (Mellisuga helenae)
To learn more about some of these aerial animals and see them in photos, in the following sections we show 10 birds and insects that fly.
1. Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
It usually flies at about 4,000 meters above sea level, although specimens have been found with the ability to exceed 6,000 meters.
two. Spotted Vulture (Gyps rueppelli)
It is the flying bird with the ability to fly the highest, reaching over 11,000 meters.
3. Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)
It is the fastest bird in horizontal flight, reaching 200 km/h.
4. Buzzard Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae)
This type of hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world (weighs less than 2 grams) and can reach a speed of 50 km/h.
5. German cockroach (Blattella germanica)
This is one of the winged cockroach varieties, so it has the ability to fly. Its size is small, since it barely reaches 2 cm in length.
6. Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)
The arctic tern or tern is a small bird (25-40 cm) that stands out for its migratory journeys, traveling from the Arctic to Antarctica and thus totaling more than 40,000 km.
7. Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus)
The common flamingo is one of the best known migratory birds in the world, so they are animals that fly over long distances. It travels based on food availability and can range from West Africa to the Mediterranean.
8. Orange Skimmer Dragonfly (Pantala flavescens)
This type of dragonfly is considered the migratory insect that travels the longest distance, being able to exceed 18,000 km.
9. Atlas butterfly (Attacus atlas)
It is the largest butterfly in the world, as it can measure up to 30 cm with its wings fully open. Of course, due precisely to its large size, its flight is heavier and slower than that of smaller species.
10. Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos)
The nightingale is a bird known for its precious song, and this little bird is capable of emitting very varied tones, learned from its parents and transmitted to its children.
