When Ice Hockey was First Played?

Another interesting question is where did the Game of Ice Hokey Originate? It is considered to be the fastest game in the world. It is played by two teams of six men in action at one time. Extra players or substitutes, sit on the sidelines. Each tries to do two things: put a small rubber discs, called a “puck” into the opponents net and prevent the opponent from scoring.

These days, Ice hockey is one of many games played with a stick and a ball. Such games are believed to have originated in Persia. Where the game of polo began, we know that the ancient Greeks played a kind of hockey and even included it in their Olympic games.

There is a wall in Athens, Greece, which is about 2,400 years old that has carved pictures of young men playing a game that is much like the field hockey of today. Ice Hockey originated in Canada more than 100 years go. One claim is that English solders played an early form of ice hockey on the frozen surfaces of Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario, as early as in 1867.

The first organized ice hockey leagues are claimed by both Kingston and Montreal. It is known that there definitely was an ice hockey league in Kingston in 1885. In 1890, the Ontario Hockey Association was organized with ten teams. However, in 1914 the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association was formed with a few thousand players.

So the birthplace of amateur ice hockey was Canada. But the United States organized ice Hockey on a professional basis for the first time. In the winter of 1904-1905, a professional ice hockey league was formed at Houghton, Michigan. The world’s only major professional league, the National Ice Hockey league, was started in 1910. The NHA (National Hockey Association) define the rules of three 20 minutes half, introducing three minor and major penalties. Later, the Ice Hockey got popular in Europe by introducing multiple leagues across.

A Girl Made From Flowers

The story of Blodeuwedd tells of how a young woman was created by two magicians. They were Math and Gwydion, to be the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who had been condemned by his mother to have no human wife. But Blodeuwedd, the woman they made, is unfaithful to her husband, who then kills her lover. Blodeuwedd ends up being turned into an owl, condemned to fly only at night and to live ostracized by all the other birds of the air.

The Children of Arianrhod

Gwydion presented his sister Arianrhod to Math. He made the young woman step over a magic wand to test her virginity. But as she stepped over the wand, she dropped two small children. The first was called Dylan, but the second boy remained unnamed, as Arianrhod insisted that he would have a name only when she was ready to give him one. She then placed two more taboos on her son.

The tricks of Gwydion

Gwydion dealt with the first taboo— not naming the boy—by tricking his sister into calling him Lleu Llaw Gyffes (“Bright One of the Skilful Hand”). Her second taboo was that he would not bear arms until she was ready to arm him, but again Gwydion tricked her, and she equipped her son. Finally, she declared that her son would never have a human wife. This time Gwydion sought the help of Math, and together the pair used their magical powers to make Lleu a beautiful wife from the flowers of the broom, meadowsweet, and oak. The woman they created was called Blodeuwedd.

The treachery of Blodeuwedd

Blodeuwedd proved faithless. She took a lover, Gronw Pebyr, and the pair plotted to kill Lleu. Blodeuwedd tricked Lleu into revealing the only circumstances under which he could be killed, and then she placed him in the perfect position, leaving Gronw to strike the final blow. But as the spear pierced him, Lleu turned into an eagle. He was restored to human form by Gwydion, then found Gronw and killed him. As punishment for her part, Gwydion turned Blodeuwedd into an owl.

A Fateful Mission in the Bermuda Triangle

This is the real story of A Fateful Mission in the Bermuda Triangle. When At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombers roared off the runway of the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station. Flight instructor Lieutenant Charles G. Taylor was leading thirteen crewmen of Flight 19 on a routine navigational training exercise. But ominously the course lay over an area bounded approximately by Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico, in what is now known as Bermuda Triangle, where so many ships and aircraft have met mysterious fates.

Flight 19 began smoothly enough But at 3:40 p.m., an unsettling message from Taylor to another plane in his squadron was intercepted by Lieutenant Robert Cox, who was airborne over Fort Lauderdale on another exercise. "What is your trouble?" Cox asked Taylor. "Both my compasses are out, and I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale," Taylor replied.

For the next forty-five minutes, Cox tried to ascertain Taylor's position and direct him to land by orienting him toward the sun, but although it was a clear day, Taylor seemed unable to find it. Finally, Taylor's transmission faded until it stopped. Then, inexplicably, Cox's radio went dead, too. He returned to the field at Fort Lauderdale.

The ground station at Port Everglades had meanwhile established intermittent contact with the troubled Flight 19, confirming Cox's observations. Finally, at about a quarter past five, the ground station heard a forlorn message from Flight 19; "We'll fly west until we hit the beach or run out of gas. The authorities at Fort Lauderdale ordered an immediate search, and before long a Mariner flying boat was in the air with another thirteen crewmen. But the Mariner was not heard from again.

For the next five days, other search planes flew more than 930 sorties over the area. But not a a scrap of wreckage from either the Avengers or the Mariner was ever recovered. Most analysts blame this and other disappearances that have occurred in the area on the normal hazards of the sea and air. But students of the occult blame the disaster on the malevolent powers said to flourish in the Bermuda Triangle. This mission in the Bermuda Triangle is never found anywhere else in the books. 

Read More – Golden Chains of Laburnum / The Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina)
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The Mystery of UtsuroBune?

In the year 1803, many fishermen in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan reported seeing a strange vessel wash up onshore. They described the vessel as circular, hollow, and made of metal and glass, with cryptic symbols inscribed on its hull. From the bizarre craft emerged a beautiful woman clad in the clothing of a style and material unrecognizable to the local villagers who had gathered on the beach.

In her hands, the mysterious woman clutched a small box, which she would not allow anyone to touch. She could not speak Japanese or any other identifiable language. Various historical illustrations of the UtsuroBune story depict the same set of symbols etched in the ship’s hull. And fascinatingly, though separated by two hundred years and several oceans, the strange shapes on the craft are eerily like those described by Sergeant Jim Penniston in Rendlesham Forest.

Could the shared symbology point to an extraterrestrial alphabet? Is it possible for the UtsuroBune and the Rendlesham Forest craft traveled from the same otherworldly origin? And what does it mean that the UtsuroBune washed ashore near the Dragon’s Triangle, also called the Devil’s Sea? An area of the Pacific Ocean in which more than eight hundred ships have allegedly disappeared?

More and more government and military officials who have been involved with the UFO phenomenon are coming forward and speaking out. Indeed, some governments around the world are opening their UFO files. There’s a kind of quickening of the pace here. It’s like we’re building up to something, and if there is a great secret to be discovered, the disclosure movement is doing its part and keeping interested focused on this fascinating mystery.

It was far too interesting and important just to walk away. Hence, the questions of, Are we alone or not in the universe? Are we being visited? These are really the biggest and most profound questions we can ask ourselves. That’s why many investigators involved with it and why they were so passionate about it. Read More - Stefan Michalak Faces UFO Near Falcon Lake, Canada

Who Invented the Helicopter?

The long time dream of humans to flying machine that would be rise straight up in an old one! It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci made drawings for a gigantic screw like helicopter about A.D. 1500. Da Vinci never tried to build one because he had no motor to drive it.

Who Invented the Helicopter? So, it is unclear and no one knows where it came from but a toy helicopter known as “the Chinese top” was shown in France in 1783. However, in 1796, Sir George Cayley made experimental forms of Chinese tops and also designed a steam driven helicopter.

For the next 100 years, a number of people made designs for helicopters. Some were fantastic, other almost practical, and a few of them actually flew. But there were no powerful, lightweight engines. It was not until such engines were made during World War I that anyone made a helicopter that got off the ground with a man aboard.

In 1906, two French brother Jacques and Louis Breguet made a successful experiment of Gyroplane No. 1. That machine lifted its pilot into the air about 0.6 meters (2 ft) for a minute. Igor Sikorsky built two helicopters or chopper in 1909 and 1910. One of them actually lifted its own weight. Towards the end of year 1917, two Austro-Hungarian officers built a helicopter to take the place of observation balloons.

It made a number of flights to high altitudes but was never allowed to fly freely. Therefore, work on helicopter continued in many countries but none of the machines were what the inventors had hoped for. In 1936, an statement came from Germany that the Focke-Wulf Company had built a successful helicopter.

However, in 1937 it flew cross country at speeds close to 70 miles an hour and went up more than 335 meters. In 1940, Sikorsky showed his first practical helicopter and it was delivered to the United States Army in 1942. Silkorsky design was called the VS-300. Soon after, Helicopter was used in military campaign. Source: Charismatic Planet

Exocoetidae and Other Flying Fishes

How do the members of Exocoetidae compare to other flyers? Researchers traditionally group flying fish with all the other vertebrate gliders:

“flying” frogs with their expanded webbing on the front and hind feet.

Draco, the flying “dragon,” with a flight surface formed from elongated ribs, ‘‘flying” geckos, warm weather lizards.

“flying” snake that can turn its body into a flight surface by forming a depression on its underside by drawing in its skin while the body is coiled into a triangular-shaped plane.

Mammalian gliders-flying squirrels, marsupial sugar gliders, and the colugo or ‘‘flying lemur”- in which the flight surface is a fur-covered membrane stretched out between the legs and the body. Despite the superficial distinction of gliding, wing design, and flight performance differ sharply between flying fish and other vertebrate gliders.

Other gliders are restricted mainly to trees. They fly by descending from a position in the trees higher than where they will be at the end of their glide. Their flight surfaces are more like parachutes than wings. The very low aspect ratios of such flight surface slow the animals’ rate of descent while preventing the onset of stall. The glide path is very steep. Flying fish have a shallow glide path at high speed. They begin and end their flight at the same level. performance characteristics that resemble those of flapping flyers, such as birds and bats.

Wing shapes and glide ratios are remarkably similar between the two groups. But flying fish do not have adaptations for lightening the body-like pneumatic bones and air sacs-as birds do. To function underwater, the fish required a body density close to that of water for buoyancy and stability. They required and takes precedence over the advantages in the flight of a lower-body density. As a result, the wing loading is higher for flying fish than for birds.

Flying fish must glide faster than birds to keep the same rate of sink and to prevent the onset of stall. The machine, flying fish are inseparably linked to the physical constraints of wind and gravity. Notwithstanding these limitations, flying fish have aerodynamic designs that give them greater gliding proficiency in seeming effortless flight. We must marvel at how a fish out of water can perform so elegantly.

Related Reading

1. The Fearless Dam Climbing Alpine Ibex
2. Pudu – The Smallest Deer in the World
3. The Beautiful Red Fox (Foxes and Coyotes)

Reference - Frank Fish (Professor of Biology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Myotonic Goat - The Fainting Goats

Sometimes animal behavior surprises you. The Myotonic Goat which faint temporarily seizes when feels panic. This goat is also known as wooden-leg goat, falling goat, fainting goat, stiff-legged goat, and nervous goat. Humans get faint while the feeling of panic attacks, strong emotional stress or any disease.

The interesting thing about Myotonic Goat, when they fell over, their legs hilariously raised towards the sky. The comical behavior making Myotonic Goat popular among people and they often record the video of Myotonic Goat for social media platforms. The goat abruptly laying motionless on the ground for 5 to 20 seconds, and then bounce back on their feet as quickly as they fell.  

This curious reaction to fright has made fainting goats do not lose consciousness.  They just become stiff from fright and a genetic condition called as myotonia congenita, which causes their muscles to become rigid for a brief period when startled. The stiff-legged goat behavior is alike to the condition in humans hereditary genetic disorder which is identified as congenital myotonia.

Therefore, once the stiffness goes away, they bounce back quickly on their feet. That is why this goat has given many names mentioned above. The medical conditions of muscle “Myotonia” didn’t hurt them or are painless to the central nervous system. This curious behavior is not exceptional to falling goats or livestock, but human beings can affect by this too.

A transient farmer John Tinsley arrived in Marshall County, Tennessee in the 1880s with four goats. He sold these four goats to his employer Dr. H. H. Mayberry and then moved on to another state. Dr. Mayberry breeds the goats but certainly must have originated somewhere. It is unclear, where he came from or from where he brought these unique goats. However, the origin of the breed remains a mystery because the condition doesn’t appear to have surfaced anywhere else in the world.

The stiff-legged goat eventually became famous in the local market and meat source in the 1950’s. The strictly muscular goats but docile and very much easier to care and maintain. Fainting Goats of Tennessee are also raised as a pet or show animals as they can be sociable, gifted, easy to fence, and entertaining. The goat is poor in climbing and jumping so not difficult to keep them.

In the 1980’s a trend in United States agriculture popular to breed the exotic species of animals including Myotonic Goats. So, this increased trend eventually important for everyone to have registries to track its breeding. Moreover, most of the Myotonic Goats are horned, but some are polled “hornless”.

Most myotonic goats are horned, although many are polled (hornless) and some breeders select specifically for polled goats, the ears are medium-sized and habitually held horizontally. The nervous goats have variable colors but black and white are relatively common. However, the hair coat is changing from very short to long but smooth and shaggy.

So, some breeders prefer shaggy goats as they are very resistant to inclement weather. The meat of fainting Goats is tender and tasty due to the top of meat quality. Also, it is very imperative to realize that the stiffness in no way results in rough meat, but rather just the opposite. The Myotonic Goats reproductive function is highly maternal, normally reproduce non-seasonally at six months intervals.

Moreover, fecundity and milk production are very good. Normally, the twins are not common. However, in rare cases, the triplet is possible as does usually have no problem rearing triplets unassisted. The nervous goats are good foragers, active and are efficient with winter feed.

Related Reading

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3. The Beautiful Red Fox (Foxes and Coyotes)

White Bellbird – World’s Loudest Bird

Scientists have the opinion the male white bellbird (Procnias albus) has the loudest call of any bird species recorded to date. The bird producing its chainsaw-like calls recording levels louder than a pneumatic drill. It's part of the male bird's mating ritual. The white bellbird is perhaps closely related to the genus, Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus).

A medium-size bird was recorded bellowing at levels as high as 125 decibels among all bird species in the world. Previously the record was held by the screaming “piha” (Lipaugus vociferans) passerine bird, with 116 dB. Therefore, the white bellbird has 9 decibels higher than the loudest recorded call. The Massachusetts Amherst Team and Brazil’s National Institute of Amazon Research in the Rainforest published the journal. Some interesting facts may surprise you that a jet engine taking off 150 db, and the pop of a balloon 157 db in the short duration.

They believed that males seemed to save their loudest call for when a female was perched as they sang, close to within four meters. Whereas watching white bellbirds, we were fortunate enough to see females join males on their display perches. The scientists hear the dramatic, almost theatrical swivel call and feel, the louder the call, the shorter it lasted. But if sexual selection keeps pushing the call to be louder and louder, then it’s going to become shorter and shorter.

The white bellbird is found in the dense forests of Guiana Shield. There are also few numbers found in Venezuela and Brazil state of Pará. The female bird is olive with yellowish streaks however, the male is completely white, and black wattle adorned with white “rosettes”, which hangs lightly over the bill when the bird is not displaying.

The Amazonian white bellbird sings ear-splittingly loud. The scientific measured both birds’ volume in the Amazon mountains and found pigeon-sized male white bellbird’s louder than “Piha” as loud as a very noisy rock concert. The female bellbird could be sitting near a loud male to assess it up close. But why she risks hearing system by doing so is uncertain. Furthermore, it is amazing, how a half-pound bird produces such a loud call?

This is also a mystery for researchers now as they are in the early stages of understanding biodiversity. They also observed that the white bellbirds on average a quarter of a kilogram (just over half a pound), unusually thick and developed abdominal muscles and ribs. It is unclear, how a little bird manages to get so loud. The bird habitually does some type of migrations at least long-distance wandering and scattered in central Amazonia and on Trinidad attest. Interestingly animals usually reserve loud calls for long-distance communication, and few species are famous for to vocalize more softly when receivers are close by.

Maybe these deafening calls should come as no amazement – the bellbirds wouldn't be the only species to go to extremes to find love. Because the birds of paradise display their dance and moves, pufferfish draw shapes in the sand. Also Read: The Hoopoes is Distinctive Crown Feathers Bird

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Northern Flying Squirrel

The northern flying squirrel “Glaucomys sabrinus yukonensis” is a gliding “volplaning” mammal that is unable to true flight like birds and bats. There are around 25 subspecies across North America with Interior Alaska being the most the northern and western limits of the species' range.

The generic name, “Glaucomys” is from the Greek “glaukos” (silver, gray) and mys (mouse). The “Sabrinus” is derived from the latin word “sabrina” (river-nymph) and refers to the squirrel's habit of living near streams and rivers.

Description: Adult flying squirrels’ average weight is about 139 gm and 12 inches in total length. The tail is broad, flattened, and feather-like. Moreover, an exclusive feature of the body is the lateral skin folds (patagia) on each side that stretch between the front and hind legs and function as gliding membranes.

The Northern Flying Squirrel is nocturnal and has large eyes that are extremely resourceful in the darkest nights. The color of eyeshine is a distinctive reddish-orange. The squirrel pelage is silky and thick with the top of the body light brown to cinnamon, the sides grayish, and the belly whitish.

Habitat: The Northern Flying Squirrels require a forest mosaic that includes acceptable denning and feeding areas. Den sites include tree cavities and witches' brooms. Tree cavities are most frequent in old forests were wood rot, frost cracking, woodpeckers, and carpenter ants have created or enlarged cavities.

Witches' brooms, clumps of abnormal branches caused by tree rust diseases. The most common denning sites of flying squirrels in Interior Alaska. About Nov or Dec, when temperatures start to drop sharply, flying squirrels move out of cavities and into brooms. When the coldest periods of the winter season, they form aggregations of two or more individuals in the brooms and sleep in torpor.

Northern Flying Squirrel Facts

The feeding areas normally preferred by flying squirrels contain fungi (mushrooms and truffles), berries, and tree lichens and maybe in either young or old forests. Also, dried fungi cached in limbs by red squirrels are sometimes stolen by flying squirrels.

Flying squirrels perhaps get water from foods they eat and rain, snow, and dew. Hence, the constant sources of free water are lakes, ponds, and watercourses, and they do not appear to be a stringent habitat requirement.

In a year's time, a flying squirrel in Interior Alaska may use as many as 13 different den trees within 19.8 acres (8 ha). On a night foray, a squirrel may travel as far as 1.2 miles (2 km) in a circular route and be away from its den tree for up to 7 hours. 

It may change den trees at night and move to different ones more than 20 times over a year, staying in each for a varying number of days. Den trees with brooms are used more than twice as much as trees with cavities.

Fairly dense, old closed-canopy forests with logs and corridors of trees (especially conifers) that are spaced close enough to glide between are needed for cover from predators. High quality flying squirrel habitat can be a community mosaic of small stands of varying age classes in which there is a mix of tall conifers and hardwoods.

Moreover, the part of the mosaic must be an old coniferous forest with den trees containing witches' brooms, woodpecker cavities, and natural cavities for nesting sites. Riparian zones provide outstanding habitat in all coniferous forest associations.

Life: In Alaska flying squirrels breed anytime from March to late June but depending on the length and severity of the winter. The female squirrel may breed before 11 months of age and give birth at about 1 year of age. The gestation requires about 37 days, so the young are born from May to early July. One litter of two per year is probably the usual case for Alaska, but they are identified to have litters ranging from one to six in other parts of their range.

At the birth time, the young flying squirrel (nestling) is hairless, and its eyes and ears are closed. The nourishing process is slow in comparison with other mammals of similar size. Normally eyes open at about 25 days, and they nurse for about 60 to 70 days.

At around 240 days, the young are fully grown and cannot be distinguished from adults by body measurements and fur characteristics. The mortality rate for northern flying squirrels is 1 and 2 years old, at around 50 percent, and few live past 4 years of age. Complete population turnover can occur by the third year.

Individual flying squirrels’ nest in tree cavities, witches' brooms, and drays. In Interior Alaska, most brooms and cavity entrances have southerly exposures. Nests in cavities are usually located about 25 feet above the ground but may range between 5 and 45 feet. Flying squirrels excavate chambers in witches' brooms and line them with nesting materials.

A dray nest is a ball-like mass of mosses, twigs, lichens, and leaves with shredded bark and lichens forming the lining of the chamber. Flying squirrels build drays completely by themselves or adapt the nests of other species (e.g., bird nests, red squirrel nests). The dray is frequently positioned close to the trunk on a limb or whorl of branches with its entrance next to the trunk. Most dray in Alaska are probably conifers.

Food: The Northern Flying Squirrel is omnivorous, so very little is known about its diet. However, the the food they consume in other parts of its range include mushrooms, truffles, fruits, lichens, nuts, seeds, green vegetation, tree buds, insects, and meat (fresh, dried, or rotted).

The nesting birds and birds' eggs may also be eaten. Those observed foraging in the wild in Interior they ate mushrooms (fresh and dried), truffles, berries, tree lichens, and the newly flushed growth tips on white spruce limbs.

In the spring and summer seasons, their fall the diet is mostly fresh fungi. In winter it's mostly lichens. Flying squirrels are not known to cache fungi for winter in Alaska, but they are known to do so elsewhere in their range. Witches' brooms and tree cavities would be likely places to find their caches.

Predators and parasites: Hawks, Owl, and carnivorous mammals prey on flying squirrels. However, the main predators are perhaps the great horned owl, goshawk, and marten due to their massive occurrence and widespread range in Alaska's forests. The three different flea species may infest a single squirrel.

Normally, forest fragmentation is a real threat to flying squirrel population due to dependence on gliding locomotion in forests. Though, the gliding ability isn’t affected by weight and sex. So, the forest gap should not exceed the distance traversable with a distance between forests and tree height at the forest edge.  These are the only gliding mammals that extend the wingtip by means of a cartilage at the wrist

Economic and ecological value: Flying squirrels are important to forest regeneration and timber production because they disperse spores of ectomycorrhizal fungi like truffles. Truffles are fruiting bodies of a special type of fungus that matures underground. They are dependent upon animals to smell them out, dig them up, consume them, and disperse their spores in fecal material where the animal travels.

The the animal serves to inoculate disturbed sites (e.g., clear cuts, burned areas) with mycorrhizae that join symbiotically with plant roots and enhance their ability to absorb nutrients and maintain health. The northern flying squirrel's ecological role in forest ecosystems, consequently, gives it economic value.

Furthermore, they may be important prey for a variety of hawks, owls, small carnivores, and furbearers like marten, lynx, and red fox. Numerous Alaskans value flying squirrels just for their interesting habits and aesthetic qualities.

In the view of management considerations, the logging for house logs, wood for fuel, and lumber can have devastating effects on flying squirrel populations if clear cut size is too big or if some scattered tall conifers in large cuts are not retained as cover and for travel across the open spaces.

Management should include the retention of other squirrel species in shared habitats. Snags with woodpecker holes or other natural cavities and coniferous trees with witches' brooms must also be maintained in managed forests in order to provide adequate habitat for flying squirrels.

Flying Squirrel Sound

The Northern Flying squirrels emit short, but high-pitched chirps to connect with one another. Normally they are habitually a soft churning noise and chirping sounds they make. Flying squirrel is not dangerous to humans but make their homes into your property and damage the wires, pipes, drywall, and insulation. 
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• Chandragup Mud Volcano
• Castle of Mada’in Saleh
• The Semi Transparent Flying Gurnard Fish
• Exocoetidae – Amazing Fish That Flies

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Flying Fish - How to Fly Fish?

People flying in airplanes invariably think of birds in flight and often draw analogies between the aerodynamic design of birds and that of aircraft. The study of bird flight and of the form and structure of birds had supported the development of human flight. But the birds are not altogether appropriate models for aeronautical design. Birds use beating wings to defy gravity and to propel themselves through the air, while airplanes use fixed wings for lift and engines for propulsion.

To be truly analogous with aircraft, birds-or other flying animals- would have to generate their propulsion from a source other than their wings, and those wings would have to remain fixed. Decades ago, as the field of aviation was quite literally getting off the ground, researchers had looked at a different group of animal flyers with fixed wings as a possible analog to the airplane.

In the October 1908 issue of The Aeronautical Journal, between an article titled “The Probable Cause of the Explosion of Count Zeppelin’s Airship” and another called “The Wright Bros’ Flying Machine,” was one about the flight of flying fish. The article was beautifully examined the steering and handling mechanisms of the fish for application to the airplane. But the subject is complex.

A decade after Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis, researchers could not fully grasp how fish could fly above the surface of the ocean. Airplane designs were used to understand flying fish, rather than the converse. I first observed some flying fish from a boat off Key Largo in Florida. As the boat cruised along, the fish exploded from the waves produced as the bow sliced through the water.

They took off in a direction perpendicular to the boat’s course. With outstretched wings they sailed into the air about two feet above the water, traveling in a lazy banking arc. At the end of the flight, they descended gradually to the surface of the water before falling back into the sea and disappearing into the swells as magically as they had appeared. Years later, interest in flying fish-unconnected in any way to emerge from studying the variation in wing design among genera of flying fish and how such design influences aerodynamic capabilities.

How to Fly Fish?

Flying fish are part of a single taxonomic family known as the “Exocoetidue” and are most closely related to needlefish and halfbeaks. The family includes eight genera, eight groups, which frequent the tropical oceans of the world. Most are small, approximately six inches long, although the California flying fish can grow to 18 inches.

The “wings” of flying fish are enlargements of the pectoral and pelvic fins, the paired fins of the body. the shoulder and located just behind the gills, and the pelvic fins are located toward the rear, on the underside of the body. When outstretched, both sets of fins furnish a broad surface to generate an upward lift force for flight.

The aerodynamic shape of the pectoral fins is remarkably like that of some birds’ wings. Like the curved upper surface on the wings of any bird or any commercial jetliner, the numerous fin rays supporting the wings of flying fish produce a curved or arched profile that helps generate lift for flight.

Flying fish are gliders, not true flyers like birds, bats, and insects, all of which fly by beating their wings. They had misunderstood the fluttering of wings from fish in flight. The wing flutter is not as with birds-an oscillatory mechanism to generate lift, but the result of air rushing by a flexible.

The pectoral fins are borne by structure. It is like a flag waving in the breeze. To take to the air, a flying fish leaps from the water or rises to the surface continually beating its tail to generate propulsion as it starts to taxi. The taxiing run lets the fish accelerate at the water surface and build momentum for takeoff. Once the fish reaches its top speed of 20 to 40 miles per hour it spreads its elongate fins and becomes airborne.

This action was captured beautifully in a series of high-speed elements flash photographs taken at night by the father of stroboscopic photography, Harold Edgerton. The animals are impressive, with typical glides of 50 to 300 feet and flight. The flight performance of these times of 30 seconds. The fish can reach altitudes of 20 feet. There are accounts of them landing on the decks of ships.

Experts hypothesize that the fish can increase distance and time aloft by using updrafts from the windward face of waves. One study claimed that when flying into the wind a fish could travel over a quarter of a mile! flying fish is a flat arc, like that of some missiles. The French Exocet (the word means “flying fish” in French) is a missile that skims just above the water surface before striking its target, usually a ship.

Such a sea-skimming weapon caught the world’s attention in 1982 when the British ship HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet launched from an Argentinean naval aircraft. At the end of the glide when speed and altitude are decreasing, flying fish can either fold up their wings and fall back into the sea or drop their tail into the water and re accelerate for another flight.

This capacity for successive flights greatly increases the possibilities for air time. The record reported is 12 consecutive flights covering 1200 feet. The key to this version of touch-and-go is the unique design of the flying fishtail. The usual tail fin of a modem bony fish has equal upper and lower lobes. The tail of a flying fish has an extended lower fin lobe.

Except for flying fish, this type of fin is found only in the fossilized remains of ostracoderm, an early group of jawless fishes. The elongated lower lobe in flying fish lets the tail oscillations generate enough speed for flight without the entire body becoming submerged. The tail lobe works like an outboard motor powering a boat. why flying fish take wing. They may be escaping from predators.

By leaving the water, they may be fleeing the jaws of death and confusing pursuers by splashing down in unpredictable places. They may also be saving energy. By moving through the air, a less dense medium than water, they may be reducing the amount of energy they need for locomotion. Scientists think energy conservation may explain why We don’t understand very well dolphins leap from the water when swimming at high speed.

Flying fish can be divided into two morphologically distinct groups based on their wing design-Cypselurus and Exocoetus. The first group has long broad wings derived from the pectoral fins, the paired fins at the shoulder. Enlarged pelvic fins aid these pectoral fins, representing as much as 25 percent of the overall wing surface. The Exocoetus have narrower pectoral fins than those of Cypselurus, and the pelvic fins make up only about eight percent of the overall wing surface.

The difference in wing design between Cypselurus and Exocoetus has been understood since 1930 when one researcher compared Cypselurus to an advanced biplane with a main (pectoral) top wing and a staggered (pelvic) underwing and Exocoetus to a monoplane with long narrow main wings.

Aerodynamics

To understand how the wing design of flying fish affects flight performance, let’s examine the aerodynamics of gliding. As a glider moves through still air at a constant speed, it is acted upon by gravity and pulled downward by a force equal to its weight. That force, in turn, is resisted by an equal and opposite force directed upward. This upward aerodynamic force represents the balance between the “lift” force generated by the wings and the “drag” force resisting the movement of the body and wings through the air.

The balance of these forces is all-important in-flight dynamics. The proportion of lift relative to drag is called the glide ratio. If drag rises relative to lift, the rate at which a glider loses height-its sinking speed-will increase. A loss of almost all lift is called stall. Anyone who has ever watched a paper airplane stop in mid-air before plummeting to earth is aware of the stall. To study how wing design affects flight performance, the aerodynamic quantities of wing loading and aspect ratio, looking at the gliding ratio and the sinking speed.

Wing loading is the weight supported by the area of the wings. Large flying fish with high wing loading's must fly faster to remain aloft with the same rate of the sink as smaller fish with low wing loading's. The aspect ratio is the square of the wingspan divided by the wing area. A high aspect ratio means the wings are long and thin with high lift and low drag characteristics, wings that reduce sinking speed, like those of an albatross.

Low aspect ratio wings are short and broad with low lift and high drag, like those of a flying squirrel. Although Cypselurus and Exocoetus are similar in size, Cypselurus has a lower wing loading and aspect ratio. The four broad wings of Cypselurus help with increased lift at slow flight speeds. The underside of certain species is flattened, increasing the total lifting surface of the fish.

Exocoetus has two high aspect ratio wings, which means a substantial reduction of the drag on the wings for rapid flight. Although accurate flight speeds for the two groups are hard to come by it is difficult to make measurements at sea without a fixed frame of reference and with variants in wind direction and speed-Cypselurus can glide farther than Exocoetus.

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• Exocoetidae – Amazing Fish That Flies