Fish around the globe are celebrating the discovery that they flew long before birds did. Fossils of flying fish found in China could be 240 million years old. That's 80 million years before birds took flight, perhaps ending the centuries-old feud over who is better, fish or birds.

Fish, it seems, flew in the air long before anyone, even the dinosaurs, and decided: 'No. This is rubbish. Let's go back to the sea, where there are plenty more fish, in the sea.'

Their flight would have been prompted by the same motivation that propels today's flying fish out of the water: showing off to their mates. Come on, if you could do it, you would. Oh, and predators trying to eat them. That too.

Fish fans now speak of a strategic withdrawal from the air, but birdwatchers, or twitchers, disagree that fish rejected flying. They claim that birds' dominance of the skies, proves their superiority. A twitcher called Richard, or Twitchard to his friends, said: "Why would they take to the watery depths where it's cold and wet and leave the sunshine, the joy of flight and the multi-coloured plumage that excites me so, to other creatures. Because they have tiny fish brains and are ugly and dumb."

But fish supporters mocked the birdwatchers claims as sour grapes now the truth has emerged. "In your face, birds!" Hollered one fan. "While you were still pecking the soil for seeds, too stupid to take to the air, the mighty fish were flying, swimming and doing sychronised diving. That is prehistoric winning!!"

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