Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly Out of the Water?

[Staff]

Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly Out of the Water?
To escape predators in the ocean, these cephalopods will speed away by shooting a jet of water. But can squid use that behavior to take to the air and control their trajectories?
August 2, 2010
By Ferris Jabr

Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly Out of the Water?: Scientific American

"Hulse was shooting with burst mode on his camera, so I know exactly what the interval is between the frames and I can calculate velocity of squid flying though the air," O'Dor says. "We now think there are dozens of species that do it. Squid are used to gliding in the water, so the same physiology probably allows them to maneuver and glide in the air. When you look at some of the pictures, it seems they are more or less using their fins as wings, and they are curling their arms in [a] shape that could easily be some kind of lifting surface."

From fin to wing
The 2004 paper's authors argue that "gliding" is too passive a term to describe what squid do when they leave the ocean for the air: "flight" is more fitting.

"From our observations it seemed like squid engage in behaviors to prolong their flight," Maciá says. "One of our co-authors saw them actually flapping their fins. Some people have seen them jetting water while in flight. We felt that 'flight' is more appropriate because it implies something active."

The aerodynamic benefit an airborne squid derives from flapping fins and spiraled tentacles is not...

[tineckbone]

flying squid I can handle. When someone snaps a picture of a flying pig or flying cow, then it is time to worry. Unless of course it is during a tornado in which case the time for worry is already upon you.