This Tiny Creature Can Soar for a Whopping 230 Feet on a Single Glide

With large goggle-like eyes, webbed feet, and a full-body wingsuit made of skin, the flying lemur looks like an unconventional superhero soaring through the trees. Its elusive nature and peculiar features have puzzled and intrigued both scientists and casual observers alike, prompting the question: What exactly is this unusual animal?

The “Flying” Lemur

Despite being called a flying lemur, the curious creature featured in this YouTube video isn’t actually a lemur at all! It is a Malayan colugo (Cynocephalus variegates). Although colugos aren’t lemurs, they are closely related to primates. They also look a bit like lemurs with their large eyes, which help them to see at night and accurately judge distance.

Malayan colugos (or Sunda flying lemurs) live in various countries of Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, and Thailand. They are plant-eaters and spend nearly all their time high up in the trees where they forage for flowers, leaves, and buds. Malayan colugos are only about 13 to 15 inches long and weigh just 2 to 4.5 pounds. Their fur is usually grayish-brown to reddish-brown, and their webbed toes act like suction cups, giving them a better grip on tree branches.

Of course, the most iconic feature of a Malayan colugo is its “wings”, which are actually a large skin membrane called a patagium. This membrane stretches all the way from the animal’s neck down to the tips of its toes. It acts like a built-in paraglider, allowing colugos to “fly” or glide between trees. Colugos also have sharp claws for climbing, and they can fold their gliding membrane out of the way when necessary.

Long-Distance Gliding

You might think such a small animal couldn’t make it very far, but the Malayan colugo can travel 230 feet through the air in a single glide! When colugos glide across longer distances, they push off from the trees with greater power. Interestingly, however, the farther they glide, the softer they land. This suggests that colugos can somehow change how the air pushes against their gliding membranes before they land, helping them to slow down and land gently to avoid injury.

In other words, colugos can manage their speed throughout their entire glide. They can actively control how fast and how gently they land by using their gliding membrane to slow themselves down. They can reduce their speed by as much as 60% just before they land.

Time-Efficient Travel

Gliding uses more energy, but it saves a lot of time because it allows the colugos to travel long distances quickly. This means they have more time to search for food. It might also help them stay safe from predators.

Colugos are amazing aerial acrobats, and they can even make sharp 90-degree turns while gliding. Scientists aren’t exactly sure just how fast they travel through the air, but it is estimated that they take off at an average speed of about 12 feet per second.