The "flying" lemur of Malaysia is the champion of all gliding mammals, able to drop from the forest canopy, glide more than the length of two football fields, execute 90-degree turns and then alight gently on a tree trunk.

Birds that hang out in large urban areas seem to have a marked advantage over their rural cousins – they are adaptable enough to survive in a much larger range of conditions.

It is widely known that birds learn to fly through practice, gradually refining their innate ability into a finely tuned skill. However, according to Dr Jim Stone from the University of Sheffield´s Department of Psychology, these skills may be easy to refine because of a genetically specified latent memory for flying.