Snake locomotion

Snake locomotion is movement produced without limbs, using coordinated body muscles and contact with the ground or surrounding surfaces. Common modes include lateral undulation, rectilinear movement, sidewinding, and concertina locomotion.

Lateral undulation: A locomotion pattern in which a snake forms traveling waves of side-to-side body curvature that push against surfaces. This common mode converts sideways body waves into forward motion through contact with the ground.
Snake skeleton: The axial framework of vertebrae, ribs, and skull that supports a snake's elongated body. Its many joints let the body form the curves required by several gaits.
Arboreal locomotion: Movement through trees and other elevated vegetation. Snakes adapt their body waves and anchoring to branches that provide discontinuous support.
Limb-based locomotion: Movement powered primarily by limbs that push against or pull along a supporting surface. Snakes achieve comparable travel without the repeated foot placements used by limb-bearing animals.
Rectilinear locomotion: A straight-line gait in which a snake advances through alternating contractions of its ventral muscles and skin. It shows how a snake can move forward without conspicuous side-to-side bending.
Vertebral column: A series of vertebrae forming the central skeletal axis of vertebrates. Snake movement depends on bending and stabilizing this elongated axial structure.
Burrowing: Movement into and through soil or other confined underground materials. Some snakes use body motions suited to pushing through a substrate that yields around them.
Peristalsis: Wave-like contractions that propel material through a muscular tube, as in the digestive tract. Both use traveling contractions, but peristalsis moves contents inside a tube rather than the animal over ground.
Sidewinding: A gait in which a snake lifts and places sections of its body in sequence, moving obliquely across loose or hot ground. It limits body contact while gaining traction on unstable or very hot surfaces.
Skeletal muscle: Muscle tissue that contracts under nervous-system control to move or stabilize the skeleton. Snake gaits rely on precisely timed contractions of muscles attached along the body.

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