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 \u2013 more specifically, he wants to know how they climb trees so easily, and so fast.
Presenter Caroline Steel meets snake expert Mark O\u2019Shea to investigate the ingenious methods different snakes use to scale a tree trunk, and gets a demonstration from a very agreeable corn snake at a zoo.
Snake movement isn\u2019t just your typical S-shaped slithering: these reptiles move in a remarkably diverse range of ways. Melissa Miller from the University of Florida explains all the range of motion snakes can employ to effectively travel along the ground as well as at height.
Caroline witnesses this in action as we pay a steamy visit to the Everglades National Park in Florida, USA, tracking pythons across the vast swamps there. We find out why understanding these pythons\u2019 movement is vitally important for conserving the local ecosystem.
Contributors: \nDr Melissa Miller, Research Assistant Scientist, University of Florida \nBrandon Welty, Wildlife Biologist, University of Florida \nProf Mark O\u2019Shea MBE, Professor of Herpetology, University of Wolverhampton
Presenter: Caroline Steel \nProducer: Hannah Fisher \nEditor: Cathy Edwards \nProduction Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano \nStudio Manager: Neva Missirian