Rebecca Davis '15
If you’ve ever wondered how snakes move, and even manage to climb, without arms and legs, Greg Byrnes, Ph.D., is the man to talk to. The Siena College assistant professor of biology has found the answer to that question by studying the movement of a variety of snakes ranging from boa constrictors to green tree pythons.
Byrnes and his colleague Bruce Jayne built “trees” out of cylinders and secured sensors along the “trunks.” Then they captured video and monitored how the snakes climbed upwards on them. Their findings were recently featured in national scientific publications, including Biology Letters and the “Weird and Wild” page of the National Geographic website.
The scientists found that snakes grip trees by squeezing their muscles, much in the same way human beings would use their hands to grip a rope while climbing. The most interesting part of their research was that the snakes would grip much harder than they had to, which means that they spend more energy than necessary just to hold on tight.
“What’s cool is that a lot of constricting snakes are good at controlling the amount of force they use. They can feel their prey’s heartbeat,” Byrnes said. “If they have this capacity and this activity is so hard, why do they do it?”
The answer, Byrnes said, is that snakes maintain a tight grip for safety. They squeeze hard to prevent falling, which could be dangerous. Also, snakes don’t move very much, so their energy is spent hanging on.
“Snakes are ambush predators. A snake could climb a tree and sit there for three days,” said Byrnes. “So, in the end, the energy cost isn’t too high; they can do stuff that is really hard for only short periods of time.”
Byrnes has been studying the climbing of snakes since 2009 during his post-doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati and still continues to do research on the subject. Before that, he studied gliding mammals, such as flying squirrels. His research is shaping a greater understanding of our world. In the process, his work is sparking the curiosity of future scientists and anyone who wants to know more about how animals, like snakes, move and thrive in their environment.
