High-speed camera footage from researchers at Japan’s Toho University revealed that these Southeast Asian reptiles repeatedly launch their coiling bodies into the air.
Dwarf reed snakes can cartwheel away from danger instead of relying solely on slithering, according to a study published in Current Biology.
The researcher added, “In our study, their peak forward velocity during rolling was, on average, four times that of normal undulating locomotion. At the same time, Kojima’s team began independently observing snake behaviour in Sarawak, Malaysia. Formal documentation of the snake’s rolling behaviour first appeared in a 2023 study.
“During rolling, the posterior body is tightly curved, and rolls on the ground like a wheel, while the anterior body is lifted off the substrate and the head faces the direction of travel,” the researchers explained in the study. “Rolling allows them to escape from danger very quickly,” study first author Yosuke Kojima, a lecturer in the biology department at Toho University in Japan, told Live Science.
