Normally what I would do here is get some information on some sort of terrifying animal, then try to form it into some sort of coherent string of words to share with everybody. Today is different. Today I have almost no information or statistics on what I am saying.

Just a few moments ago, I was looking at a list of non-bird animals that are able to fly, glide, or otherwise become airborne for an extended period of time. Everything was looking in order: ants that could maneuver and glide when they fell off trees, spiders that use web as parachutes to float along in the wind. Then I got to the next header which read ‘Moluscs’. Seems like a strange group to have a flying member, butd hey, they are a pretty diverse group that has everything from limpets to the octopus, maybe there is some strange offshoot species that catches wind as it falls or some nonsense like that. Then I saw it – Flying squid.

Now squid were scary enough when it was just a fast moving cephalopod with grasping tentacles and a powerful parrot-like beak. But now they can use jet propulsion to launch themselves into the air and travel distances up to 50 meters? “Bullshit!” was my initial response (that I probably shouldn’t have yelled out loud, being at work at the time). So I hit some wikipedia pages for flying squid, and while they did mention briefly that a form of squid jet propulsion does exist it didn’t say anything about lifting said squid out of the ocean, not to mention 50m. So I went to youtube and google images to see some visuals of this thing. Nothing. Not one credible image or video. I offer a bounty of $20 + a hug for a video of a squid flying by it’s own power, and a warning to watch yourself when near the ocean (maybe)

-Wolverox

Tags: flying, squid, wolverox