Home > Science Worksheets > Flying Animals

From the story of Icarus, to Superman, to the Wright Brothers, mankind has always envied the power of flight. Your students will read short passages to learn about different animals that can fly (or at least glide in some cases), and answer questions about them. Two different answer sheets-one multiple choice and one short answer-are provided for each passage. Note: some answer sheets are multiple pages. Answer keys are provided for each sheet.

Fun Fact: While not exactly flying, some spiders practice "ballooning," in which they spin a silk to ride the winds to new areas.

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Flying Mobulas

A flying mobula sounds like something from a sci-fi novel but it is a real animal on Planet Earth. In fact a mobula is a species of ray, an ocean fish that is related to sharks.

Flying Mobulas - Multiple Choice Questions

Mobulas are huge fish, up to twenty feet wide and weighing 1500 pounds or more.

Short Answer Questions

Two pterodactyls, Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx, compete for the title of the largest flying animal ever.

Short Answer Questions

Like whales, mobulas will break the surface of the water, which is known as breaching.

Flying Geckos - Reading Passage

Of course, the gecko in the commercials is an animated creature and real geckos are found in the United Kingdom only as pets in a vivarium.

Flying Geckos - Multiple Choice Questions

The majority of gecko species live in warm areas of the world, including Africa, southern Asia, Indonesia, and around the Mediterranean Sea. Many of world’s geckos are arboreal, which means that they live in trees.

Short Answer Questions

Flying geckos don’t really fly because they don’t have wings like a bird but they glide through the air.

Flying Frogs - Reading Passage

Perch yourself by pond or wetlands area on a summer's evening and you will most likely hears the voices of frogs, from the bellowing sound of a large bullfrog to the cricket-like chirps of tiny tree frogs.

Multiple Choice Questions

Biologists exploring in the Himalayan Mountains in this century have recently found a new species of flying frog.

Short Answer Questions

The best known flying tree frog is Wallace's flying frog, named for the man who first studied them.

Flying Squirrels

There are ten subspecies of Southern flying squirrels found in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and into Central America.

Multiple Choice Questions

Flying squirrels don't have wings that they flap like birds do. Instead, flying squirrels have two pieces of skin covered with fur that connect the wrist of a front leg with the ankle of a back leg on the same side.

Short Answer Questions

Describe the geographic area where Northern flying squirrels can be found.

Flying Lemurs- Reading Passage

Even though flying lemurs are not classified as primates, genetic analysis shows that they are closely related to primate species.

Short Answer Questions

Flying lemurs are mammals. They are arboreal animals, which means that they live in trees and don’t spend much of their time on the ground.

Lemurs Short Answer Questions

Adults are about 14 to 16 inches long and weigh 2 to 4 pounds. They have a 12-inch tail and are known for their small rounded ears and large eyes. Flying lemurs don’t really fly like birds but instead glide through the air.

The Largest Flying Animal Ever

If you deduced that the answer is a prehistoric flying dinosaur, you are on the right track.

Multiple Choice

The flying reptiles lived about 65 to 85 million years ago until they became extinct when the dinosaurs disappeared.

Short Answer Questions

Fossil evidence on pterodactyls includes not only bones but preserved embryos of baby pterodactyls still inside an egg.

The Largest Flying Animal Today

Wingspan measures the distance from the tip of the left wing to the tip of the right wing when the animal has its wings fully outstretched. Large birds today have a wingspan of about twelve feet.

Multiple Choice Questions

A unique physical feature of these birds that live on the ocean is a salt gland located near the nose.

Short Answer Questions

Youngsters will not mate until they are eleven to fifteen years of age. Fortunately, even with this slow rate of reproduction, the population of snowy albatross is showing only a slow decline.

The Fastest Flying Animal

It probably doesn't surprise you that the fastest flying animal is a bird, the peregrine falcon when it is diving.

Multiple Choice Questions

The peregrine falcon has an extremely fast dive because it swoops down on prey from a high perch or while flying.

Short Answer Questions

This bird is naturally adaptable and lives almost everywhere in the world except for New Zealand, tropical rainforests, and very cold areas.

Flying Fish Passage

Even though fish are designed to live in the water, there are 64 species in fish family that are classified with the scientific name Exocoetidae.

Multiple Choice Questions

Flying fish have unique physical characteristics that support their ability to leap out of the water and fly above the surface. Fish fins have tiny bones underneath the skin to provide a structure and rigidity to them.

Short Answer Questions

The pectoral fins of flying fish are different because they are much longer than average fish species plus the bones are structured to form a curved instead of flat fin.

Flying Snakes

Don’t worry, a flying snake won’t whiz past your face when you are out for a walk in the woods!

Multiple Choice Questions

Of course, flying snakes don’t actually fly like birds or airplanes; snakes don’t have wings. Instead, flying snakes glide through the air a bit like a paper airplane. However, a paper airplane does have wings that make it aerodynamic.