Paradise Flying Snake: How a Snake With No Wings Glides
The paradise flying snake (Chrysopelea paradisi) is a slim Southeast Asian tree snake that glides between trees. It jumps from a branch, flattens its body to about twice its normal width, and undulates through the air; from a 9.6 m perch it travels about 10 m horizontally, and studies show the undulation keeps it stable.
Quick facts
- Scientific name: Chrysopelea paradisi, one of a small genus of Asian "flying" snakes.
- Where it lives: treetops of Southeast Asia, from Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia to Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and India's Andaman Islands.
- Size: in the main gliding study, adults reached about 87 cm from snout to vent (the body without the tail) and weighed under 83 g.
- Diet: mainly lizards, occasionally birds and bats.
- Superpower: launches itself from branches and glides about 10 m from a 9.6 m perch, steering as it goes.
Where does the paradise flying snake live?
This is a tree snake through and through. The Reptile Database describes it as fully arboreal and lists a wide range across Southeast Asia: Thailand (including Phuket), Myanmar, peninsular and East Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, much of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali and many smaller islands), the Philippines and India's Andaman Islands. Researchers describe Chrysopelea snakes as active by day and living in lowland rainforests. If you want to compare it with the other places snakes live, see our snake habitats guide.
How big is it, and what does it eat?
It is a slim, light snake. The 14 gliders filmed by John Socha and colleagues for their 2005 study weighed between 3 and 82.7 g, with snout-vent lengths of 31 to 86.5 cm. The smallest was a juvenile of just a few months. In the wild, the genus feeds mainly on lizards, sometimes taking birds and bats. It lays eggs rather than giving birth to live young.
How does a snake fly without wings?
It doesn't truly fly: it glides, and it does it surprisingly well. Three tricks make it work.
1. A real jump
Most snakes cannot jump at all. Socha's 2006 take-off study found that paradise flying snakes usually hang the front of the body below the branch in a "J" shaped loop, then spring up and away. He described these looped take-offs as the only true jumping known in snakes. Snakes that launched this way went higher, farther and faster than snakes that simply dived or dropped off.
2. A body that turns into a wing
As it leaves the branch the snake flattens its body from top to bottom, spreading to about twice its resting width. High-speed footage published in 2020 shows this flattening starts during the jump and finishes just after the snake is fully airborne. Its whole body then acts as one long, wavy wing.
3. Swimming through the air
Once airborne, the snake forms a wide "S" and sends waves down its body, a bit like swimming. For years nobody knew whether this "aerial undulation" helped or was just a leftover habit from slithering. In 2020, Isaac Yeaton, Jake Socha and colleagues tracked gliding snakes with motion capture and built a 3D computer model. They found the movement is made of side-to-side waves plus up-and-down waves at twice the frequency. Simulated snakes that stopped undulating tumbled out of control in roll and pitch. Undulation kept them stable and made their glides much better. Read more about ordinary snake locomotion on our how snakes move page.
How good a glider is it?
Better than you might expect. Launching from a branch 9.62 m up, the snakes in the 2005 study travelled an average of about 10 m horizontally, reaching airspeeds of around 10 m/s (about 36 km/h). Their path started as a steep dive, then flattened out, with an average minimum glide angle of 28° and one glide as shallow as 13°. The authors concluded that these snakes rival or even outperform more familiar gliders such as flying squirrels. Socha's earlier 2002 report in Nature also noted that the snake can control the direction it travels despite having no obvious control surfaces.
Why glide at all?
The researchers suggest gliding could help the snake move between trees without climbing down, chase prey, or escape predators. Nobody has yet studied in detail how wild snakes use it day to day, so that part is still an open question.
Surprising findings
- The name isn't about paradise. According to the Reptile Database, paradisi comes from the Latin paradisus (Greek paradeisos), meaning "park", probably because the original specimen came from a park.
- Robots may copy it. The 2020 study suggests the snake's wave-based steering could be a new template for designing flying robots.
- It hid in plain sight. It was long lumped in with the golden tree snake (Chrysopelea ornata) until a 1943 review showed they are separate species.
Is it dangerous?
As our species guide notes, it is considered harmless to people. As with any wild snake, admire it from a distance. If you are not sure what you have seen, our venomous or not ID guide compares dangerous snakes with lookalikes region by region, and our safety page covers what to do around wild snakes. Snake fans can also keep an eye on the SnakeWise shop, which is coming soon.
Sources
- Socha, J. J., O'Dempsey, T. & LaBarbera, M. (2005). A 3-D kinematic analysis of gliding in a flying snake, Chrysopelea paradisi. Journal of Experimental Biology, 208, 1817–1833. doi:10.1242/jeb.01579
- Socha, J. J. (2006). Becoming airborne without legs: the kinematics of take-off in a flying snake, Chrysopelea paradisi. Journal of Experimental Biology, 209, 3358–3369. doi:10.1242/jeb.02381
- Yeaton, I. J., Ross, S. D., Baumgardner, G. A. & Socha, J. J. (2020). Undulation enables gliding in flying snakes. Nature Physics, 16, 974–982. doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0935-4
- Socha, J. J. (2002). Gliding flight in the paradise tree snake. Nature, 418, 603–604. doi:10.1038/418603a
- Uetz, P. et al. (eds). Chrysopelea paradisi species account. The Reptile Database. reptile-database.reptarium.cz (accessed 8 October 2026)