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CrowdScience: How does a snake climb a tree?

Discussion & Talk

05/07/2024 GMT

How does a snake climb a tree?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, How does a snake climb a tree?

Snakes are often seen as slithery, slimy and scary. But these intriguing non-legged creatures have made CrowdScience listener Okello from Uganda wonder how they move – and more specifically, he wants to know how they climb trees so easily.
 
CrowdScience investigates. Presenter Caroline Steel meets a tree-climbing snake to witness it in action, and we hear from snake expert Mark O'Shea about the ingenious methods different snakes use to scale a tree trunk. Snake movement isn’t just your typical S-shaped slithering: these reptiles move in a remarkably diverse range of ways.
 
And we pay a steamy visit to the Everglades National Park in Florida, USA, tracking pythons across the vast swamps there. These pythons are invasive and cause major problems for the area; understanding their movement patterns is vitally important for helping manage their numbers. 
 
Presented by Caroline Steel
Produced by Hannah Fisher for the BBC World Service

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How does a snake climb a tree?

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