UA professor putting $1 million biomimicry grant to work — on snakes crainscleveland.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from crainscleveland.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Snakes do a lot more than slither. Some swim, while others sidewind across sand (
SN: 6/29/20). But no one has ever seen a snake move the way that brown tree snakes do when they climb certain trees. By wrapping its tail around a tree or pole in a lasso-like grip and wriggling to propel itself, a brown tree snake can shimmy up structures that would otherwise be too wide to climb.
Better understanding how brown tree snakes (
Boiga irregularis) get around could inform strategies to control their population in Guam, where the snakes are an invasive species. The reptiles are infamous for having wiped out almost all of the native forest birds on Guam and frequently cause power outages by clambering up utility poles.