Usually snakes are well known for their S-shaped movements when they are attacking. However, snakes have
the ability to propel themselves into a straight line when they are crawling without wiggling. How do
they accomplish this?
Snakes are usually known for their S-shaped movement, but scientists wanted to unlock the mechanism behind a snakes ability to propel themselves forward in order to navigate confined spaces. Researcher, Dr. Bruce Jayne, has already unlocked the mechanism behind three types of snake movements, the concertina, serpentine, and sidewinding. In his recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Dr. Jayne and Dr. Steve Newman, touch on the straightforward movement of snakes called “rectilinear locomotion.”
In the 1950s, it was hypothesized that rectilinear locomotion utilities a snake’s muscles in combination with its belly skin to scoot itself forward without bending its spine. In order to test if this original hypothesis is correct, scientists used digital cameras to record the movement of boa constrictors while recording the electrical impulses generated by particular muscles. Researchers saw that when snakes inch forward, the belly flexes more than the skin over the ribcage and back. The scales act like the thread in a tire to provide traction, while the muscles pull the snake’s internal skeleton structure forward quickly and fluidly. This type of locomotion gives the snakes an advantage to move in straight lines in a small confined space in order to hunt their prey, mice and other rodents.
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