Tiny Southeast Asian snakes escape by rolling, four times faster than they slither
Snakes that roll like a wheel while keeping their heads steady: worth the click for the video link alone.
Dwarf reedsnakes of the genus Pseudorabdion can roll across the ground to escape danger, reaching peak speeds of 1.72 to 3.69 meters per second, about four times their top slithering speed, according to a Toho University release on ScienceDaily.
Filming the snakes from several angles, researchers found that they alternate between rolling on one side and swinging a curved part of the body down beside the head, a move they call a "stroke." The rear of the body spins while the head stays pointed forward at a nearly constant height. The snakes held a 20 cm-wide racetrack, so the rolling is controlled rather than tumbling.
Rolling is hard for animals because, unlike a wheel, they have no axle to separate a spinning body from the head and senses. The researchers say the snakes manage it through coordination alone.
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Rotating locomotion in living systems
After exploring These tiny snakes roll four times faster than they slither | ScienceDaily, to learn why nature almost never invents the wheel, read Rotating locomotion in living systems.
Some organisms roll to get around, but apart from bacterial flagella no organism is known to use true wheels or propellers; the article explains why evolution and terrain work against them.
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