Having a flying animal that has like a 35-foot wingspan—that’s what I see that has precedence in nature. The largest flying animal was Quetzalcoatlus, which is a pterosaur and had a 35-foot wingspan. But it also weighed, from what we understand, probably only .2 tons.

There are no reptiles that have powered flight, but we do have flying lizards such as Draco volans, which means “dragon that flies.” This animal has essentially taken its ribs and made them very elongated so they come out on the sides and there’s webbing between them. Normally they keep them against their side, but when they’re ready to escape a predator or move to a different tree, they flare them out and they’re able to glide through the air on their ribs, and they do a quite good job of it.

Then there are also flying snakes, which is really wonderful. A lot of people don’t think about snakes flying, but there are gliding snakes such as Chrysopelea, which does a similar thing. Their ribs also can flare out and they essentially create this airfoil with their body where it’s kind of concave on the belly. This allows them to catch the wind and they essentially slither through the air and use their tail kind of like a rudder. They can make great distance doing this.

There are also flying frogs that use the webbing between their hands and their feet as little parachutes.