A Japanese film crew has shot a 45-second-long video of a flying fish in the air, in what may be the longest recorded flight of the acrobatic species. The flying fish was seen flying in parallel with the ferry, which was moving at about 18.6 miles per hour.
The fish was able to continue flying by occasionally beating the surface of the water with its tail fin when it began to lose altitude. The flight time of 45 seconds beats the previous record of 42 seconds reported by an American researcher in the 1920s and must be close to the fish's physical limit, as brachial respiration is impossible while flying in the air.



Flying Fish are a marine fish family comprising about 50 species grouped in 7 to 9 genera. Flying fish are found in all the major oceans, particularly in the warm tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Their most striking feature is their pectoral fins, which are unusually large, and enable the fish to take short gliding flights through air, above the surface of the water, in order to escape from predators.


Photograph by Peter Parks/Animals Animals-Earth Scenes