Question #151387. Asked by
psnz.
Last updated Jul 05 2024.
Originally posted Jul 05 2024 8:35 PM.
In animals that move without use of limbs, the most common feature of the locomotion is a rostral to caudal wave that travels down their body. However, this pattern can change based on the particular undulating animal, the environment, and the metric in which the animal is optimizing (i.e. speed, energy, etc.). The most common mode of motion is simple undulations in which lateral bending is propagated from head to tail.
Snakes can exhibit 5 different modes of terrestrial locomotion: (1) lateral undulation, (2) sidewinding, (3) concertina, (4) rectilinear, and (5) slide-pushing. Lateral undulation closely resembles the simple undulatory motion observed in many other animals such as in lizards, eels and fish, in which waves of lateral bending propagate down the snake's body.
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