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Flying salamanders? Not really, but there is a species called the wandering salamander that lives in the tallest trees in the world and can simulate flight very convincingly, parachuting down from high to another branch, another tree, or the ground. .

There are other animals without wings that can safely navigate through the air. The flying squirrel may be the archetype, and some spiders, lizards and frogs it can fly through the air and come for a soft landing. Most have obvious control surfaces – the flying squirrel’s leather wings are a good example. But wandering salamanders living on the tops of California redwoods look almost identical to closely related species that never fly out of the air.

In A study published Monday in Current BiologyThe researchers tested the skills of tree- and ground-dwelling salamanders using a wind tunnel to simulate flight over the tops of trees.

“We climb trees to study them,” said Christian E. Brown, a PhD candidate in biology at the University of South Florida and the study’s author. studying flight is difficult in nature, almost impossible. We needed a wind tunnel for that.”

Working with animals, even in the lab, poses a problem.

“They’re jumping out of your hand,” said Mr Brown. “We had to slow things down and the wind tunnel is also safer for the animals. We had vets checking them in between trials and we did three trials a day with each animal, no more. It took weeks to get to 45 trials.”

They slowly dropped a non-arboreal species into the tunnel and watched it topple down to the bottom.

But when a wandering salamander entered the tunnel from a researcher’s hand, as soon as she felt the breeze she stretched out her legs, remained perfectly upright, glided up and down with the airflow, and turned gracefully, apparently very comfortable in defiance. gravity. These are useful skills for an animal that lives at the top of a 250-foot tree.

Wandering salamanders have certain physical characteristics that may contribute to their gliding ability. Their bodies are slightly flatter and longer limbs than non-arboreal species. Their big feet and long toes slow their fall through the air by forming concave surfaces that can act as a kind of parachute.

But these bodily features don’t fully explain their extraordinary ability to bend and turn to slowly change direction, control their speed, and maintain an upright stance.

“They can make a move and spin on a dime,” said Mr Brown.

Flight controls look like legs and tail. When the researchers put the wandering salamanders upside down or back into the wind tunnel, they were immediately able to whip their tails and return to an upright position. When they put their right hind leg in, the body rotates around that leg. They can take stances that change their pace. Still, exactly what makes the animal capable of these movements remains a mystery.

Watching a movie of the wandering salamander soaring and gliding through the air like an astronaut on the space station gives the impression that the animal is having a great time. Is this?

“We can’t interview them,” said Mr Brown wistfully, “and it’s hard to know what a salamander is thinking.”