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title: "What the sources say about the Paradise Flying Snake | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "46 claims from the Paradise Flying Snake profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it."
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# What the sources say about the Paradise Flying Snake (*Chrysopelea paradisi*)

> 46 claims from the Paradise Flying Snake profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it. A "..." marks a cut in a quote and [brackets] an insertion.

Profile: [Paradise Flying Snake](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/paradise-flying-snake/)

## Flying snake. Encyclopedia Britannica.

https://www.britannica.com/animal/flying-snake

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| grows up to 91 centimetres (36 inches) long | grows to 91 cm (36 inches) in length |
| Chrysopelea, a genus of five slender tree snakes found in South Asia and the Indonesian archipelago | any of five species of nonvenomous snakes constituting the genus Chrysopelea in the family Colubridae. These slender arboreal snakes are found in South Asia and the Indonesian archipelago |
| the genus Chrysopelea is classed as nonvenomous | any of five species of nonvenomous snakes constituting the genus Chrysopelea |
| Flying snakes hunt by day, taking rodents, bats, birds, and lizards | Flying snakes are active by day, capturing rodents, bats, birds, and lizards (note: genus scope, so the sentence says flying snakes) |
| Flying snakes as a group take rodents, bats, birds, and lizards, by day | Flying snakes are active by day, capturing rodents, bats, birds, and lizards (note: backs stats.diet; genus scope, so the stat says flying snakes as a group) |
| The Moluccan flying snake is the largest, reaching 120 cm (47 inches); the golden flying snake can reach 100 cm; the paradise flying snake tops out at 91 cm (36 inches); the Indian flying snake runs 60 to 90 cm; and the banded flying snake is the smallest, with a maximum length of 75 cm | The Moluccan flying snake ... is the largest species, growing to a maximum length of 120 cm (47 inches). The golden flying snake (C. ornata) ... can reach as much as 100 cm (40 inches) long ... The paradise tree snake (C. paradisi) ... grows to 91 cm (36 inches) in length ... The Indian flying snake (C. taprobanica) ... ranging from 60 to 90 cm (24 to 35 inches). The banded flying snake (C. pelias) ... is the smallest of the five species, with a maximum length of 75 cm (30 inches) |
| Five, in the genus Chrysopelea | any of five species of nonvenomous snakes constituting the genus Chrysopelea |

## Chrysopelea paradisi. The Reptile Database.

https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Chrysopelea&species=paradisi

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| this species lays eggs | Reproduction oviparous (note: oviparous is plain-languaged as 'lays eggs') |
| The paradise flying snake is fully arboreal | Habitat: fully arboreal |
| Its range takes in Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, India's Andaman Islands, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore | Thailand (incl. Phuket) Indonesia (Bangka, Belitung, Java, Mentawai Archipelago, Natuna Archipelago, Nias, Riau Archipelago, Sumatra, We, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali); Brunei Darussalam; India (Andaman Islands); Malaysia (Malaya and East Malaysia, Pulau Pangkor); Myanmar (Burma) Philippines (including Sulu Archipelago, Negros Oriental, Panay, Luzon, Cebu, Agusan del Norte, Dinagat Island); Singapore |
| three subspecies are recognised | Subspecies Chrysopelea paradisi paradisi BOIE 1827 Chrysopelea paradisi celebensis MERTENS 1968 Chrysopelea paradisi variabilis MERTENS 1968 |
| Fully arboreal, from Thailand and India's Andaman Islands through Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines | Habitat: fully arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018) (note: backs stats.habitat; the range is the reptile-db distribution claim in the body) |

## Noor Faradiana Binti Md Fauzi & Mohammad Shahfiz Azman (2023). Chrysopelea paradisi (Boie, 1827). Malaysia Biodiversity Information System (MyBIS).

https://www.mybis.gov.my/art/615

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| tags: rainforest | This diurnal and arboreal species inhabits forested habitats in lowland and submontane areas that elevate up to 1,500 m (note: Malaysian lowland and submontane forest (#908)) |
| tags: jungle | This diurnal and arboreal species inhabits forested habitats in lowland and submontane areas that elevate up to 1,500 m (note: kept: sole carrier of /tags/jungle/ (#908)) |

## Vogel, Wogan, Diesmos, Gonzalez & Inger (2011). Chrysopelea paradisi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2022-1.rlts.t183189a217764267.en

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| The IUCN Red List, in an assessment published in 2011, rates it Least Concern | IUCN Red List category: Least Concern (LC) (note: Crossref issued 2011-08-30 for the assessment DOI; GBIF's copy is the current category) |

## Socha (2002). Gliding flight in the paradise tree snake. Nature.

https://doi.org/10.1038/418603a

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Despite an apparent lack of control surfaces, it can exert remarkable control over the direction it takes | it can exert remarkable control over the direction it takes, despite an apparent lack of control surfaces |
| It has no wings or any other obvious body part built for flight. | flying snakes (genus Chrysopelea) have no such appendages or other obvious morphological specializations to assist them in their aerial movements (note: genus-scope line (flying snakes have no such appendages), true of this species as a member) |

## Socha, O'Dempsey & LaBarbera (2005). A 3-D kinematic analysis of gliding in a flying snake,Chrysopelea paradisi. Journal of Experimental Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.01579

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| snakes launched from a branch 9.62 metres up travelled a mean horizontal distance of 10.14 metres and reached an average airspeed of 10 metres per second, and the shallowest glide angle recorded was 13 degrees | jumped from a horizontal branch at a height of 9.62 m and landed in an open field ... Snakes traveled a horizontal distance of 10.14±2.69 m (mean ± s.d.) while reaching an airspeed of 10.0±0.9 m s-1 ... with a minimum recorded glide angle of 13° |
| figures the researchers say rival or beat familiar gliders such as flying squirrels | C. paradisi are surprisingly good gliders given their unconventional locomotor style, with performance characteristics that rival or surpass more familiar gliding taxa such as flying squirrels |
| A study that filmed its glides with two cameras and reconstructed them in three dimensions | Two videocameras arranged in stereo were used to record head, midpoint and vent landmarks on snakes that jumped from a horizontal branch at a height of 9.62 m and landed in an open field. The coordinates of these landmarks were reconstructed in three dimensions |
| in the dive it bends from a generally straight posture into a wide S-shape and begins aerial undulation, sending high, rippling waves back down its body toward the tail | the snake changed posture from generally straight to a wide `S' shape in planview and began aerial undulation ... Aerial undulation, in which high-amplitude traveling waves pass posteriorly down the body, was a prominent locomotor behavior |
| by mid-glide the front of its body stays roughly parallel with the ground while the rear cycles up and down | In mid-glide, this undulation occurred with the anterior body oriented approximately parallel with the ground and the posterior body cycling up and down in the vertical plane |
| it bends into a wide S-shape and sends waves down its body | the snake changed posture from generally straight to a wide `S' shape in planview and began aerial undulation ... Aerial undulation, in which high-amplitude traveling waves pass posteriorly down the body, was a prominent locomotor behavior (note: vibe.reason (#908)) |
| a glide reaching an airspeed of 10 metres a second | reaching an airspeed of 10.0±0.9 m s-1 (note: vibe.reason (#908)) |

## Socha (2011). Gliding Flight in Chrysopelea: Turning a Snake into a Wing. Integrative and Comparative Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icr092

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| it can maneuver and land either on the ground or on vegetation | Chrysopelea paradisi can also maneuver and land either on the ground or on vegetation |

## Socha (2006). Becoming airborne without legs: the kinematics of take-off in a flying snake,Chrysopelea paradisi. Journal of Experimental Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.02381

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Filmed taking off from a branch, the snakes mostly used vertically looped "J-loop" takeoffs, which researchers call the only true jumping in snakes | I videotaped multiple views of take-off from a horizontal branch ... In most observed take-offs, snakes used a vertically looped take-off (termed 'anchored J-loop' and 'sliding J-loop'), which represent the only true jumping in snakes |
| In the commonest, the anchored J-loop, the snake hangs the front of its body in a loop, then holds its rear body still on the branch and accelerates up and away. | In an anchored J-loop take-off, the snake formed an anterior hanging loop and then jumped by holding the posterior body static on the branch and accelerating up and away from the branch. This was the most commonly used take-off mode. |

## Holden et al. (2014). Aerodynamics of the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi: how a bluff body cross-sectional shape contributes to gliding performance. Journal of Experimental Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.090902

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| when it glides it splays its ribs outward and flattens its round body from top to bottom, turning its cross-section from round to triangular | When gliding, the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi morphs its circular cross-section into a triangular shape by splaying its ribs and flattening its body in the dorsoventral axis |
| Water-tunnel tests of a model of that shape | We used a straight physical model in a water tunnel to isolate the effects of 2D shape |
| found a higher maximum lift than many other shapes, airfoils among them, and relatively high lift even at a 60-degree angle of attack | this geometry generated significantly larger maximum lift coefficients than many other shapes including bluff bodies, thick airfoils, symmetric airfoils and circular arc airfoils ... exhibited a gentle stall region that maintained relatively high lift production even up to the highest angle of attack tested (60 deg) |
| the highest angle the researchers tested | the highest angle of attack tested (60 deg) |
| The tree-dwelling serpent that splays its ribs and flattens its body into a triangular lifting surface when it glides. | the unique cross-sectional shape of the body, which acts as the lifting surface in the absence of wings. When gliding, the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi morphs its circular cross-section into a triangular shape by splaying its ribs and flattening its body in the dorsoventral axis (note: backs the tagline; 'tree-dwelling' is reptile-db 'fully arboreal') |
| Splays its ribs and flattens its body into a triangular cross-section that acts as the lifting surface in place of wings | the unique cross-sectional shape of the body, which acts as the lifting surface in the absence of wings. When gliding, the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi morphs its circular cross-section into a triangular shape by splaying its ribs and flattening its body in the dorsoventral axis (note: backs stats.superpower) |
| Its body becomes the lifting surface. | the unique cross-sectional shape of the body, which acts as the lifting surface in the absence of wings |
| A water-tunnel study of a model of that shape | We used a straight physical model in a water tunnel to isolate the effects of 2D shape |
| a maximum lift coefficient of 1.9 and a maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 2.7 | The snake's cross-sectional shape produced a maximum lift coefficient of 1.9 and maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 2.7 |
| larger than many other shapes, including thick, symmetric and circular-arc airfoils | this geometry generated significantly larger maximum lift coefficients than many other shapes including bluff bodies, thick airfoils, symmetric airfoils and circular arc airfoils |
| By splaying its ribs and flattening itself from top to bottom, it swaps a round cross-section for a triangular one. | the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi morphs its circular cross-section into a triangular shape by splaying its ribs and flattening its body in the dorsoventral axis |

## Zamore, Araujo & Socha (2020). Visual Acuity in the Flying Snake, Chrysopelea paradisi. Integrative And Comparative Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaa143

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Flying snakes make visual assessments before take-off | Flying snakes (genus: Chrysopelea) are capable of gliding at speeds up to 11 m s-1 and perform visual assessments before take-off (note: genus scope, so the sentence says flying snakes) |
| head models suggest this species likely has a field of view of about 308.5 degrees, with a considerable zone of binocular vision that extends overhead | C. paradisi likely has a large field of view (308.5 ± 6.5° azimuthal range), with a considerable binocular region (33.0 ± 11.0° azimuthal width) that extends overhead |

## Tan et al. (2012). Bitten by the “Flying” Tree Snake, Chrysopelea Paradisi. The Journal of Emergency Medicine.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2011.03.038

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| carrying fangs at the back of its jaw | The paradise tree snake, Chrysopelea paradisi, is a rear-fanged colubrid. |
| a 16-year-old with bite marks and moderate pain on one finger: the patient showed no evidence of significant local or systemic envenomation, and had a transient change in the blood-clotting tests | A 16-year-old military college student presented to the Emergency Department (ED) of an urban teaching hospital 2 h after being bitten by C. paradisi. There were multiple bite marks and the patient reported moderate pain on the left index finger. There was no evidence of significant local or systemic envenomation. A transient prolonged coagulation profile and raised creatine kinase level were noted. (note: 'blood-clotting tests' plain-languages 'coagulation profile') |
| Its authors say the full effects of this snake's bite remain uncharacterized. | The full effects of a bite from C. paradisi remain uncharacterized. |
| One Bite, Mild Effects | This case featured only mild local effect. (note: heading; scoped to the one case by 'One Bite') |
| dangerLevel: Low | There was no evidence of significant local or systemic envenomation (note: The only case report: moderate pain and 'only mild local effect'. Britannica calls the genus nonvenomous; MyBIS 'mild venom for humans'. Low, not Medium (#908).) |
| dangerLevel: Low | This case featured only mild local effect |