Woolly wings: Flying lemurs. Woolly wings, flying lemurs or kaguans Pilandok, Palawan mouse deer

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Woolly wings, Flying lemurs or kaguans

Woolwings or kaguans (lat. Cynocephalus) are a genus of arboreal mammals of the monotypic family Dermopteridae, numbering only two species - the Philippine woolly wings or kaguans ( Cynocephalus volans), found in the Philippine Islands, and the Malayan woolly wing (Cynocephalus variegatus), which can be found on various islands of the Indonesian archipelago, including Sumatra, Java and Borneo, Thailand, and the Malay Peninsula.

Woolly wings, or as they are also called flying lemurs, are not actually lemurs at all, and they cannot fly. Their distinctive feature- a large folding membrane (patagium) that starts from the animal’s neck and ends at the tip of the tail, connecting all the limbs. No other gliding mammal has such an extensive membrane.

The arms, legs and tail are long and thin. The paws are wide, and all the toes have sharp, curved claws, which allow the animal to cling to trees and hang upside down from branches, as it does

Adult kaguans are about the size of domestic cat, have a wide head, short rounded ears and big eyes which help them see in the dark. The lower incisors have turned into a kind of “tooth comb”, which vaguely resembles the teeth of true lemurs. These animals weigh from 1 to 1.7 kg, have a body length of up to 42 cm, and a tail of 11-27 cm.

Philippine flying lemurs are smaller than their Malayan relatives, their fur is darker, and there are much fewer white spots on the coat. There is a wide variation in color and fur pattern, which allows these animals to camouflage perfectly and blend in with the bark of trees. The fur on the back of males has a brownish tint, while the back of females is gray.

Woolwings are strictly arboreal and night look life. They never intentionally descend to the ground, since hanging folds of skin do not allow them to move quickly and deftly along a vertical surface, making them practically helpless.

Flying lemurs are quite skilled climbers. Grasping a tree trunk long paws with sharp claws, they rise upward in short jerks. They move along branches and feed while hanging, clinging to branches with strong paws.

The wide membrane allows the animals to glide gracefully between trees, covering distances of 100 m or more, with little loss of height. When a flying lemur needs to glide from one tree to another, it straightens its legs, creating the effect of a glider wing.

Being nocturnal animals, woolly wings spend daylight hours in holes or cavities of trees at a height of 25-50 m above the ground, but in coconut plantations they curl up into a ball or hang from a palm branch, firmly grasping all four paws. With the onset of dusk, flying lemurs climb to the top of a tree and from there begin to glide in search of food, covering a distance of about 1-1.5 km in one night.

The animals feed almost exclusively on young foliage, although they will eat fruits, buds and flowers in addition to leaves. Like many other arboreal mammals, caguans obtain sufficient water from food or by licking wet leaves.

Little is known about social behavior flying lemurs. Several individuals can live in the same territory, but at night these animals always move alone. Friendly interactions have been observed between adults of opposite sexes and between adults and juveniles, but adult males sometimes show hostility towards each other.

Reproduction occurs throughout the year, regardless of the season. After a 60-day pregnancy, the female, as a rule, gives birth to one, rarely two cubs. Newborns are extremely helpless; the mother leaves the baby in the nest, or carries it with her, folding the tail in such a way that it looks like a bag. He spends about 6 months clinging to the belly of his mother, who moves and jumps through the trees with him. Kaguanas reach maturity at the age of 3 years. The oldest flying lemur in captivity was kept for 17.5 years before it escaped. How long he was able to live afterwards is, of course, unknown.

Caguans are listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They are considered plantation pests because these animals eat fruits, leaves and flowers. In a number of areas local residents hunt flying lemurs for their sake delicious meat and soft fur. According to some reports, woolly wings make up almost 90% of the diet of the endangered Philippine monkey-eater, although it is not clear how the diurnal predator tracks down these secretive nocturnal animals.

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Woolly wings, flying lemurs, kaguans (lat. Dermoptera) is an order and family of arboreal mammals found in southeast Asia. There are only two species in the order.

On the ground, woolly wings move slowly. They are most adapted to gliding, but cannot fly. When jumping maximum range planning up to 140 m.

The woolly wing is helped to soar in the air by a membrane connecting its neck, fingertips and tail, which is more advanced than that of the bird, and, flying from tree to tree, the woolly wing looks like a small flying carpet.

Being much larger than most flying squirrels, this animal is still no larger than a cat.

Woolly winged insects feed on fruits, leaves, seeds and moths. They feed like the rest flying mammals, at night, and during the day they sleep, hanging somewhere on a branch upside down, as if the bats.

The female woolwing gives birth to only one young. During the flight, the baby hangs on the mother's chest, tightly clinging to the fur.

The body length of the woolwing is 36-43 cm, weight up to 2 kg. The head is small, with large eyes, perfectly adapted for binocular vision. On the bare soles of the paws there are flat areas that form suction discs.

Females have fur gray, and in males - chocolate. The photos below look like it's a male :)

John Upchurch

God created a unique mammal! It glides from tree to tree and doesn't even touch the ground. It's about about woolly wings - the best gliders in the world.

Perhaps thinking about these inhabitants South-East Asia, you will imagine clumsy creatures. Well, at first glance, everything may look like this. When these funny animals are on the ground, they move and jump like clumsy chicks. Woolly wings climb a tree in such a way that, looking at them, one might think that this is a very labor-intensive process for them. They slowly climb along the bark, clinging to its cracks, and then quickly jump up on their tiny legs. You will most likely get bored watching them.

But as soon as these animals reach the crown of trees - the place where they spend most in your life, something amazing happens. These clumsy creatures transform into masters of aerodynamics. In their ability to soar, they surpass all other mammals and again confirm that our brilliant Creator knows how and with what to surprise us!

"Flying Lemur"

For their large eyes and small heads, woolly wings are nicknamed “flying lemurs,” but this name does not suit them.

Firstly, they are in no way related to the fluffy lemurs that live in Madagascar. The two species of these animals have little in common with lemurs or other primates. For example, instead of nails they have claws, opposed thumb there are no arms, and the size of the brain is much smaller in relation to the entire body.

Woolly wings are so different from all other mammals that it is difficult for evolutionists to determine which animals they belong to. At first, scientists thought that they belonged to bats (or even were their ancestors). Then they were considered primates. Now they are classified as members of the order Earwigs. Given their dissimilarity from other animals, creationists believe that woolly wings are an inherently unique “created genus.”

Secondly, “flying lemurs” do not fly like birds. Instead of flapping their wings, they use gliding. In this, woolly wings are very similar to flying squirrels: if necessary, overcome open space they spread their front and hind legs and soar from one tree to another. Woolly wings differ from flying squirrels in that they can cover a much greater distance in a jump. Some animals are able to soar over distances up to 137 m. And this is neither more nor less than 1.5 football fields. Moreover, they only lose about 1 m of height for every 12 m of distance (which is very useful when predators are lurking nearby).

Built to fly

How do woolly wings manage to perform such complex aerial stunts? It's all about the swing. Each woolwing has a large skin covering almost the entire body. This membrane, or patagium, fills almost every gap. It stretches from the shoulder blades to the front paws, further from the outermost toe on the front paw to the toes of the hind paws, and then from the hind paws to the tail. When the patagium is spread out, the animal looks like a kite flying across the sky.

No matter how great planning is, it is worthless without a good landing. Woolwings are also masters at this. Before landing on the ground, they sharply reduce their gliding speed, leveling out their strokes, and then use their paws and sharp claws to distribute the landing force.

Moreover, these acrobats tropical forests don't perform their amazing tricks during the day. IN daytime they hide from eagles and other hungry predators, and move and feed at night. By the way, in search of food, they manage to “fly” more than 3 km during the night. This is quite a lot for an animal the size of a squirrel.

Like many other nocturnal animals, woolly wings have large eyes. They help them see better at night and give them excellent stereoscopic (3D) vision, which is very important for their long flights. When daylight comes, they do not go down to the ground - because there they are very clumsy and clumsy. Instead, they hide in leaves, tree holes, or even hang upside down on branches, ready to jump off and “fly away” at any moment.

Life from above

Since woolly wings spend their entire lives in the crown of the tropical forest, God did everything to make the life of these creatures easier. As their home would suggest, woolwings primarily feed on leaves, although they may occasionally feast on flowers, fruits, buds, sprouts and even tree sap.

These animals have unusual front teeth - they look like a comb with about 20 sharp teeth (like a fork). With their help, they grab and tear leaves. Scientists are not entirely sure what the meaning of such a unique design is.

In all other respects, the teeth of woolly wings are no different from the teeth of many other herbivores. This unusual combination suggests that sharp teeth do not always mean that the animal eats meat. Many herbivores have sharp teeth, and even the most terrible carnivores before the Fall ate only plants, regardless of the size of their fangs ( Genesis 1:30).

Woolwings have a very strong stomach and long intestines, ideal for getting food from plant food as much as possible nutrients. As for water, its main source is food and rain. At the same time, they do not need to go down to land that is unsafe for them and look for a source.

These animals know well how to sing lullabies to their babies so that they sleep peacefully and do not fall out of the nest. Female woolly wings have everything they need to protect their babies. They usually give birth to one baby at a time. Pregnancy lasts only 60 days. Woolly wings are born completely defenseless and weigh about 30 g - about the same as newborn kangaroos. And although this may seem like a problem for tree dwellers, females have a unique system that protects and warms their babies. By twisting their tail, they form a safe pouch of patagium around the baby.

The babies remain in the pouch until they stop feeding from their mother (scientists don't know how long this lasts). When the mother hovers in the air in search of food, the baby clings tightly to her with its sharp claws.

Rare guests

Woolly wings, which are nocturnal, create many problems for scientists - after all, the animals rarely descend to the ground, which means it is difficult to observe them. Learning their gliding technique is no less difficult, and catching them is backbreaking work. We don't even know how long they live. The life of these creatures is shrouded in mystery.

But even what little we know about these high-flying acrobats shows that our Creator made it possible for life to exist in the most unusual conditions. Living in the canopy of a tropical forest seems difficult and inconvenient for us, but for woolly wings, life in leafy world runs very smoothly.

Other gliders

Photos: (1) Joe McDonald | Visuals Unlimited; (2) Stephen Dalton | naturepl.com; (3) Alex Wild | AlexanderWild.com; (4) Tim Hester/Thinkstockphotos.com; (5) Stephen Dalton | Naturepl.com

1. Marsupial flying squirrel: These cute tiny marsupials come out at night and are found in the forests of Australia. A special membrane extends from the wrist to the ankle, allowing them to glide. But you can only see it when the animal is in the air.
2. copepod frog: There are species of frogs that spend their entire lives in trees. In order to descend to the lower branches, they place webbing on their toes. More than 3,400 species have this amazing feature.
3. Gliding ants: Some species of ants live in tropical forests and can control their descent using flattened body parts. If they fall, they may land on the trunk of the tree they call home.
4. Decorated tree snakes : Some species of snakes that live in the trees of Asia are able to flatten their bodies into a single-winged glider. The snake grabs the end of a branch, stretches out, finds its target and launches itself into the sky. Using a whip-like motion, she can control her flight and even change its direction.
5. Volatile: "" - this is the name of a genus of lizards called Draco. These forest dwellers can spread the membrane between their fingers and glide up to 60 m in the air in search of insects.

John Upchurch is the editor of Jesus.org and a contributor to Answers in Genesis. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor's degree in English Studies.

Woolly wings, flying lemurs, kaguans (lat. Dermoptera) is an order and family of arboreal mammals found in southeast Asia. There are only two species in the order.

On the ground, woolly wings move slowly. They are most adapted to gliding, but cannot fly. When jumping, the maximum gliding range is up to 140 m.

The woolly wing is helped to soar in the air by a membrane connecting its neck, fingertips and tail, which is more advanced than that of the bird, and, flying from tree to tree, the woolly wing looks like a small flying carpet.

Being much larger than most flying squirrels, this animal is still no larger than a cat.

Woolly winged insects feed on fruits, leaves, seeds and moths. They feed, like other flying mammals, at night, and during the day they sleep, hanging somewhere on a branch upside down, like bats.

The female woolwing gives birth to only one young. During the flight, the baby hangs on the mother's chest, tightly clinging to the fur.

The body length of the woolwing is 36-43 cm, weight up to 2 kg. The head is small, with large eyes, perfectly adapted for binocular vision. On the bare soles of the paws there are flat areas that form suction discs.

Females have gray fur, while males have chocolate fur. The photos below look like it's a male :)

*All photos open in large size(1920x1200px - Full HD).

I have already posted several notes about these amazing animals.

First about in the note about.

Then, as they say, by popular demand, I wrote more about .

And today it’s the turn of the “flying lemurs”.

Woolly wings (or kaguans), or as they are also called flying lemurs, are not actually lemurs at all, and they cannot fly. Their distinctive feature is a large folding membrane (patagium), which starts from the animal's neck and ends at the tip of the tail, connecting all the limbs. No other gliding mammal has such an extensive membrane.

These cute animals belong to the genus of arboreal mammals of the monotypic family Dermopteridae, which has only two species - the Philippine woolly wing or kaguan (Cynocephalus volans), which lives on the Philippine Islands, and the Malayan woolly wing (Cynocephalus variegatus), which can be found on various islands of the Indonesian archipelago, including including Sumatra, Java and Borneo, Thailand, and the Malay Peninsula.

Some experts claim that the kaguan, or woolly wing (it is as tall as a cat), is an insectivorous animal, something like a flying shrew. Others disagree: he's a lemur (flying, of course).

Finally, others prove: the kaguan is neither one nor the other, but a special creature, in a single person representing an entire detachment. The head and muzzle of the kaguan, or colugo, is indeed similar to a lemur, but its teeth are of an insectivorous type.

Its most striking morphological property is its flying membrane, in other words, a parachute. It is much more extensive than that of any flying or gliding animal. Leathery, covered with hair (not hairless, like bats) and stretched from the very chin to the ends of the toes on all four paws (the claws on which, strangely, are retractable, like those of cats!) and further - to the end of the short tail.

Having fully extended its parachute, the kaguan soars like a kite, in an almost perfect rectangle in outline, without protrusions or depressions disturbing the pure geometry. It flies seventy meters from a tree in one jump (Alfred Wallace, a highly respected researcher, measured this distance with his own steps, and therefore there is no doubt).

It happens that a kaguan climbs down to the ground, but does not stay there for long; it hurries, clumsily galloping a la a dragon, to quickly climb up the trunk. And again it soars and soars.

The arms, legs and tail are long and thin. The paws are wide, and all the toes have sharp, curved claws, which allow the animals to cling to trees and hang upside down from branches, as a sloth does.

Adult caguans, about the size of a house cat, have a wide head, short, rounded ears and large eyes that help them see in the dark. The lower incisors have turned into a kind of “tooth comb”, which vaguely resembles the teeth of true lemurs. These animals weigh from 1 to 1.7 kg, have a body length of up to 42 cm, and a tail of 11-27 cm.

Philippine flying lemurs are smaller than their Malayan relatives, their fur is darker, and there are much fewer white spots on the coat. There is a wide variation in color and fur pattern, which allows these animals to camouflage perfectly and blend in with the bark of trees. The fur on the back of males has a brownish tint, while the back of females is gray.

During the day, the kaguan either sleeps in hollows or hangs, clinging to a branch with all four paws and covered with a parachute. Its skin is gray-ochre, with marble streaks, very similar in color to the lichens that grow on trees in the tropics.

Additional camouflage is provided by special powder compacts on its skin: greenish-yellow powder pours out of them in abundance, and therefore the skin of the kaguan is always powdered to match the bark and foliage. If you touch it, your fingers will turn yellow.

Woolly wings are strictly arboreal and nocturnal. They never intentionally descend to the ground, since hanging folds of skin do not allow them to move quickly and deftly along a vertical surface, making them practically helpless.

When introducing a kaguana, one cannot fail to mention its versatile teeth. The incisors of the kaguan are strongly pushed forward with their apices and are jagged. With his incisors he not only scrapes the flesh of the fruit, but also... combs his hair like a comb.

When the kaguan comes to life in the evening, the first thing it does is tidy up its powdered fur, crumpled in sleep. He combs his hair, brushes himself - and all with his teeth. During twilight and during the night, the kaguan preens itself so often that its “comb” quickly becomes clogged with scraps of hair.

However, in this case, special brushes are provided for cleaning the “comb” itself. There are numerous tubercles at the end of the kaguana's tongue. Quickly running his tongue over his teeth, he clears them of hair.

The Malayan kaguan often spends the night and feeds not only in dense tropical forests, but also on coconut palm plantations in the fairly populated valleys of Malaysia. He is said to be a great lover of coconut palm flowers and causes considerable damage to its plantations.

Waking up from a slumber at sunset, the kaguan tears leaves and fruits, prompted to this by an almighty appetite, and at the same time hangs in the same position in which it spent hours filled with dreams - with its back down. He eats for a long time because his food is low in calories.

Flying lemurs are quite skilled climbers. Grasping the tree trunk with long paws with sharp claws, they rise upward in short jerks. They move along branches and feed while hanging, clinging to branches with strong paws.

The wide membrane allows the animals to glide gracefully between trees, covering distances of 100 m or more, with little loss of height. When a flying lemur needs to glide from one tree to another, it straightens its legs, creating the effect of a glider wing.

Being nocturnal animals, woolly wings spend daylight hours in holes or cavities in trees at a height of 25-50 m above the ground, but in coconut plantations they curl up into a ball or hang from a palm branch, firmly clinging to all four paws.

With the onset of dusk, flying lemurs climb to the top of a tree and from there begin to glide in search of food, covering a distance of about 1-1.5 km in one night.

The animals feed almost exclusively on young foliage, although they will eat fruits, buds and flowers in addition to leaves. Like many other arboreal mammals, caguans obtain sufficient water from food or by licking wet leaves.

Little is known about the social behavior of flying lemurs. Several individuals can live in the same territory, but at night these animals always move alone. Friendly interactions have been observed between adults of opposite sexes and between adults and juveniles, but adult males sometimes show hostility towards each other.

Reproduction occurs throughout the year, regardless of the season. After a 60-day pregnancy, the female, as a rule, gives birth to one, rarely two cubs. Newborns are extremely helpless; the mother leaves the baby in the nest, or carries it with her, folding the tail in such a way that it looks like a bag.

He spends about 6 months clinging to the belly of his mother, who moves and jumps through the trees with him. Kaguanas reach maturity at the age of 3 years.

The oldest flying lemur in captivity was kept for 17.5 years before it escaped. How long he was able to live afterwards is, of course, unknown.

Caguanas are listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They are considered plantation pests because these animals eat fruits, leaves and flowers.

In some areas, local residents hunt flying lemurs for their tasty meat and soft fur. According to some reports, woolly wings make up almost 90% of the diet of the endangered Philippine monkey-eater, although it is not clear how the diurnal predator tracks down these secretive nocturnal animals.

Finishing the story about the Woolwing (or kaguan), it is interesting to remember what other animals have learned, like him, to soar above the ground. Birds, bats and insects (as well as some flying fish), having acquired flapping wings (fish - fins), fly differently. Who's soaring?

Five species of marsupial flying squirrels. In addition, there are 37 species of very similar flying squirrels, not marsupials, but from the order of rodents. Almost all of them are found in Asia, only two species are found in North America and one in North-Eastern Europe. Africa also has its own flying squirrels - spiny-tailed squirrels, eight species. They and our flying squirrels are from different families, but their flying apparatus is the same: a fold of skin stretched between their legs, a kind of parachute.

Three types African monkeys from the genus colobus, jumping from branch to branch, they soar a little in the air, they are supported in flight by garlands of long hair on the sides and a very lush fan at the end of the tail.

Having acquired flying devices of the same kind in evolution, reptiles also rushed into the air, refuting the well-known saying with the fact of their existence: “Those born to crawl cannot fly.” These are some lizards from the Sunda Islands - flying dragons (their parachute is stretched not by their paws, but by ribs spread out to the sides), their neighbors - flying frogs (the parachute is extensive membranes between long fingers) and tree snakes from South Asia. These, stretching out with a stick, jump down from the branch and soar on the skin stretched between the ribs spread apart to the sides.

Well, as you know, flying fish and flying squids glide over the sea.