How fast are snakes?
Snakes are reptiles and therefore do not move by walking, but crawling. The speed can be very high, which means that the animal can move very quickly due to the special type of locomotion.
Compared to other animals, snakes are very fast.
The locomotion of snakes
- Since snakes have neither feet nor legs, they can move around freely anywhere. There are no tripping points and the animals can easily fit through small openings. If the animal meanders across the floor, it pulls the individual body regions forward. This creates a wave movement from head to tail, which allows the reptile to move very quickly.
- The longer the animal, the more twists and turns it creates when it snakes, which ultimately makes it faster and faster. In this way, the animals can not only move forwards, but also sideways. But there is more to this energy needed and the line is not that fast.
That is how fast the animals are
- The fastest snake in the world is the black mamba. The animal can be up to four meters long. Due to the extreme length and the resulting windings, this snake can cover up to 15 kilometers per hour. In comparison, an average large adder only manages seven kilometers an hour.
- If the animals move by contracting and pulling apart, they can also crawl through narrow crevices. But they are not as fast as when snaking, but rather very slowly. On average, the snakes move at a speed of six kilometers per hour.
Reptile food - informative
Snakes, turtles, various lizards and crocodiles are representatives of the ...
Special reptiles
- But not all snakes are that fast. There are also specimens that are relatively slow compared to the others. This includes pythons, which can usually cover a maximum of 2 kilometers a day.
- Ornamental tree snakes, on the other hand, have the ability to slide. Because these animals can turn their ribs outwards, they are able to slide from one tree to the other and cover more than ten meters in the process.
How helpful do you find this article?
