Undulation enables gliding in flying snakes
Isaac J. Yeaton, Shane D. Ross, Grant A. Baumgardner, and John J. Socha
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0935-4
doi: 10.1038/s41567-020-0935-4
Reconstructed wing-body of C. paradisi snake 95, (trial 618), from the indoor glide experiments. The snake’s mass is 37.3 g and snout-vent length is 64.4 cm. Snake 95 was the lightest individual tested. The visualization shows the time-varying body posture as the animal glides through the arena. From the analysis presented in the main text, this trial has the following average spatial and temporal wave characteristics: undulation frequency: 1.33 Hz, number of spatial periods of bending: 1.07, horizontal wave amplitude: 112°, vertical wave amplitude: 28°, dorsoventral bending angle: −20°.
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