Does A Flying Fish Really Fly?
Flying fish are mostly seen in the major oceans like Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, primarily in warm tropical and subtropical areas. Their name came from their ability to stay in the air for some time. But this is not ‘flying’ in the sense that birds fly through the air. Flying fish uses their greatly enlarged front fins for ‘flying’. While ‘flying’, they start it with a rapid swimming through the water, then break the water surface by spreading and holding up stiffly their front fins like wings and sometimes rear fins as well. It also uses its tail for speeding up. A flying fish may travel several hundred metres by this way before it comes back into the water. To get the additional energy, it may strike its wings in the summit of waves while flying. It doesn’t mean that it may only be able to fly over the watery surface, but it does so over the land as well.
