Flying Fish is a type of fish which during its normal swimming movement in water can occasionally take to aerial flight by jumping into the air and gliding horizontally. The distance thus covered is at times as long as four hundred metres. These fishes occur on both east and west coasts of India, but more on the south-west where they form a fishery in winter months. They belong to the family Exocoetidae. The species are recorded from Indian seas, of which three, Cypselurus altipennis, Exocoetus volitans, and Paraexocoetus brachypterus are common.

There are small twenty five centimetres long fish with elongated roundish body and long broad pectoral fins extending up to the tail fin, the lower lobe of which also is elongated and pronounced. In some species the pelvic fin too is enlarged. Being pelagic, they swim usually in the upper strata of water. When they are about to fly, they accelerate their speed for a short distance, then suddenly jerk their head out of water and with powerful vibrations of the caudal portion of their body and the tail fin kick the water surface and become air-borne like a plane, spreading out their large pectoral fins for gliding. The pectoral fins are not flapped like birds’ or butterflies’ wings but kept distended.

A flying fish does not fly, in the sense of flapping its wing-sized fins, but actually glides. The fish builds up speed underwater, swimming toward the surface with its fins folded tightly against its streamlined body. Upon breaking the surface, the fish spreads its enlarged fins and gains additional thrust from rapid beats of the still-submerged tail. When sufficient speed has been attained, the tail is lifted clear of the water and the fish is airborne, gliding a few feet above the surface at a speed of about 16 km/hr (10 miles per hour). The fish can make several consecutive glides, the tail propelling it up again each time it sinks back to the surface. The stronger fliers can span as much as 180 metres (600 feet) in a single glide, and compound glides, timed as long as 43 seconds, may cover 400 metres (1,300 feet).

Flying fish are attracted to light as many ocean animals are. For thousands of years, fishermen have used light as a lure. A canoe filled with water with a luring light attached is enough to make plenty of flying fish leap into the canoe. Once they’re in, they can’t get enough speed to leap out.

Flying fish are a delicacy in up-market restaurants so they are always in demand.

Flying fish spawn in the open ocean. Females attach eggs to floating debris such as leaves and males aim sperm at the eggs. When enough eggs are attached, the debris floats to the ocean floor.

Mating takes place in the warmer months and fishermen have witnessed mass breeding events of flying fish jumping, flying, and swimming together. As they move their eggs and sperm are flung about. One such event in the Gulf of Mexico involved over a million flying fish in a mating orgy that lasted for two hours.