Tiny Southeast Asian Snakes Perform High-Speed Cartwheels to Flee Threats
Researchers filmed dwarf reed snakes rolling across a lab track at up to 3.7 m/s, confirming a rare escape behavior.
A team led by ecologists collected tiny Pseudorabdion snakes from Malaysia’s Kubah National Park and observed them on a 2.2-meter racetrack in the lab. When gently tapped, each snake curled into a C shape, lifted its head, and used a rapid tail swing to become airborne before landing and rolling forward, repeating the motion at speeds between 1.7 and 3.7 m/s. All three Pseudorabdion species displayed the cartwheeling, while six Calamaria reed snakes did not.
Researchers noted the snakes kept their heads stable during the rolls, similar to flying snakes. The findings, reported in Current Biology, raise questions about the anatomical or neural adaptations enabling this unusual locomotion. Biologists Jessica Tingle and Yosuke Kojima highlighted the behavior’s rarity and its possible link to historic “hoop snake” accounts.
