Fig. 2. Video stills of the squirrels in the three postures observed. (A) The forelimbs being abducted prior to the hindlimbs leaving the substrate during take-off, and how the take-off angle, , is calculated as the angle between the branch and the major axis of the best-fitting ellipse to the squirrel (excluding its tail). (B) Normal gliding flight, (C) landing from the side and (D) a ventral view landing on the pole on the left. In C, the last few frames of a landing sequence have been superimposed onto one image to demonstrate the landing behaviour, although the penultimate frame had to be omitted for clarity. In this short, 1 m jump, the squirrel initially pitches upwards and flattens its body and tail against the direction of motion. Immediately prior to landing, the head is tilted backwards while the limbs are all pushed forwards with the tail simultaneously rotated back so that it is parallel with the ground.