Watch: Snakes really can do cartwheels

The dwarf reed snake, a shy non-venomous species found in Southeast Asia, performs cartwheels when threatened, the first time such a phenomenon has been recorded. Picture: Dr Evan Quah

Snakes doing cartwheels sounds as likely as the proverbial fish on a bicycle but for the first time, such an event has been recorded.

Research published in the ecology science journal Biologica has proven that those who have claimed to see the phenomenon should not have been hissed at by doubters.

The dwarf reed snake, a shy non-venomous species found in Southeast Asia, performs cartwheels when threatened, the researchers found. 

Such reports had been submitted by people before, but this is the first time such an active rolling motion has been documented in snakes.

“By cartwheeling down an incline, the snake was able to gain speed and rapidly cover more ground. The snake was captured and placed on a flat area along the side of the road where it repeated the cartwheeling behavior several times,” the research paper said.

Research author Dr Evan Seng Huat Quah of Universiti Malaysia Sabah said he believes more snakes are likely to cartwheel away when feeling scared.

Capturing the images was an achievement in and of itself.

My colleagues and I were excited when we successfully captured images that documented cartwheeling behavior in this species.

"We believe that this behavior may be more widespread in other small snake species, especially members of the subfamily Calamariinae, but the lack of records is probably an artefact of the challenges in detecting and observing these secretive species,” he said.

It was an amazing sight to behold, he told the Natural History Museum.

"I had observed this behaviour once in passing previously but did not have the equipment at the time to record it. When we came across the snake highlighted in this study while conducting herpetological surveys for other species, we were thrilled. This allowed us to use our camera gear to successfully capture cartwheeling behaviour," he said.

Reptile expert Dr Ian Brennan at the Natural History Museum said that while there are a few similar behaviours in other animals, there is nothing quite like this.

"For example, there are legless geckos called pygopods which throw their body into a sine wave and use their long tails to spring off the ground, which is a bit similar to how these snakes cartwheel. There are also small jumping vipers which use their tails to spring off the ground."

The nimble snake can wheel away to around six times its body length in just five seconds.

The dwarf reed snake inhabits mainly forested areas hiding under logs, rocks or leaf litter, according to the Ecology Asia website.

There are many unusual defence mechanisms across the animal world. The Texas horned lizard shoots blood from its eyes to ward off predators, while the hairy frog, found in Central Africa, can break its own toe bones to push through its skin to form makeshift claws.