World_of_Animals_Issue_46_2017

With a flattened body
it makes a slithering
motion in mid-air for
more efficient gliding.
It jumps from
a branch in a
J position.
It lowers its head
to gain speed.
To flatten its body the
snake spreads its ribs.
The internal organs are
flattened with the body.
Super serpents
Tree snake species have
evolved to glide in mid-air
In Southeast Asia’s jungles, five species of ‘flying’
tree snake have evolved an ingenious way to get
from tree to tree without touching the forest floor.
After an initial jump into the air from the edge of
a branch, the snake flattens its body to twice the
normal width, expanding its surface area to allow
it to glide. It can then undulate its body to wriggle
in mid-air, which helps to keep the flight going
and also provide steering.
On landing after a successful
dive the snake can adjust
its body to the normal nearcylindrical
shape.
Snakes can ‘see’ infrared
Vipers, pythons and boas have pit organs on
their faces that can detect infrared radiation
from warm bodies close by, allowing them to
sense prey by ‘seeing’ body heat.
Snakes hear with their jaws
Believe it or not, despite it being widely reported
that they don’t have ears, a snake’s hearing is
actually very good. Instead of using external ears
like many other mammals, vibrations
(from the ground and also from
low-frequency airborne noises)
travel through the snake’s body to
the quadrate bone, which is the
connection between the lower
jaw and skull. From here the
vibrations are passed to the
snake’s inner ear where
nerves link to the brain.
Elastic ligaments
allow the bottom
jaw to expand to
swallow large prey.
The quadrate bone attaches the
‘floating’ jaw to the skull, allowing
the jaw to move independently.
When swallowing prey, the
snake uses large, sharp
teeth for leverage to ‘walk’
its jaw over the prey.
© Thinkstock; Alamy
Some snakes can
swallow super-sized meals
For snakes, the laborious act of eating a massive
meal has the benefit of not needing to hunt for a
long while afterwards – it’s hard work to digest,
but less work than hunting. These snakes can fit
colossal animals relative to their size into their
bodies thanks to highly elastic skin and specialized
jaws that can expand to let in the largest of prey.
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