Arabian Flying Snake

FLYING REPTILE of the Middle East. 
Physical description: Looks like a water snake. Has wings like a bat.
Behavior: Flies from Arabia to Egypt in the spring. Attacked by ibises. Significant sighting: In the fourth century B.C., Herodotus claimed to have seen their skeletons in large numbers at a place called Buto between Egypt and Arabia. 
Possible explanations: 
(1) The Desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is a large, flying grasshopper of Africa and Asia that periodically forms massive swarms hundreds of miles long, causing enormous crop damage. Though each locust is only 2.25 inches long, such a swarm would leave behind a large number of dead insects. 
(2) The fossil bones of Spinosaurus, a large theropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous, 95 million years ago. The type specimen was first described in 1915 near Marsá Matruh, Egypt, on the Mediterranean coast. Its most striking feature is a set of dorsal spines that probably supported a sail-like membrane. 
Sources: Herodotus, The Histories, ed. John Marincola (New York: Penguin, 1996), pp. 112–113 (II. 75–76); Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 135–136. 1905, though breeding populations persisted at least through the 1940s and probably until the 1960s. Confirmed jaguar sightings took place in 1971 (east of Nogales), 1986 (Dos Cabezas Mountains), 1996 (Baboquivari Mountains), and 2001 (near the Mexican border), with scattered, unconfirmed reports occurring almost annually. Whether this constitutes a breeding population or occasional stragglers from Mexico is uncertain. The subspecies was declared endangered in the United States in 1997. Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants: Final Rule to Extend Endangered Status for the Jaguar in the United States, 50 CFR Part 17 (July 22, 1997), on line at http://endangered. fws.gov/r/fr97622.html; Mitch Tobin, “Wandering Jaguar Shakes Things Up,” Tucson Arizona Daily Star, February 24, 2002.
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