For the last week we have been learning and writing about an animal. My animal I chose was a Flying Snake. First we had to gather all the information and put it on a document in our own words and then we wrote the report.
Here is my report:
Did you know their are 5 types of Flying snakes? There are the Paradise Tree snake, Moluccan snake, Indian snake, Golden Tree snake and the Twin Barred Tree snake. The Flying snake’s scientific name is Chrysopelea and also the snake is a reptile. They can grow up to 1.2 meters but some of them can only grow around 61 centimetres but the smaller the better because the smallest are the best gliders. The Flying snake belongs to the family Colubridae because they are mildly venomous to their prey but are perfectly fine to humans.
The Flying snake is found in lots of places but mostly in the jungles of south and southeast Asia. They live in jungles so they can climb and glide off trees to be protected from predators. All the different types of Flying snakes live in different places. Here is where some of them live, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, parts of the Philippines, Singapore and southern Thailand.
The Flying snake has a long thin slender body. Most have slimy yellow scales on their back which are framed with black edges. Some have a stripe of red going down their back or have a bunch of red on the top of their head. They can camouflage into the ground so they can get away from predators easily.
The Flying snake is a carnivore this means they only eat meat. They have small fangs that poison the animal. Their poison is venomous to humans. They only eat rodents, lizards, frogs, birds and bats. They also don’t have the right kind of teeth to chew animals so it eats them whole.
The female Flying snake lays 6 - 12 eggs in May or June but the eggs hatch in June. The hatchings are 15 - 20cm long and their colours are the same as an adult but just brighter.
Have you ever wondered if Flying snakes really fly? They don’t really fly, they glide from tree to tree. They flatten their body up to two times their width from their head to the bottom of their tail. Once they have flattened the body it goes into an U shape to make it like a parachute so they can glide down to safety. Some Flying snakes can glide up to 100 meters without touching the ground but sometimes that doesn’t work out and they crash land, on land.
Flying snakes have a lot of predators but their main predator is King Cobra. To escape from him they use acrobatics or gliding. Also their colours sometimes scare predators away. Some snakes roll over or play dead when confronted by their predators.
I don’t think many people have heard of the animal Flying snake that’s why I wanted to do it for an animal report. I thought before I started this report it was just a boring little snake that had a cool name but then I learnt that it glides and it doesn't like the King Cobra and lots more. I hope one day I could learn more about Flying Snakes so I could teach other people more about it.
Bibliography
