Several species of snakes are capable of climbing trees just
like many other animals, and the fact that they don't have limbs
to use to climb up doesn't mean that they are incapable of
climbing. Some species of snakes are arboreal - they prefer to
live in trees, and they hunt in trees as well.
Snakes climb up trees using muscles evenly distributed
throughout their body. They wrap around a tree trunk and climb
up. The force they use to climb up can be as much as 3 times
higher than the force that is actually necessary to climb up,
but they are using such force just to be sure that they will get
up the tree and stay up there. Why is that so? The reason is
most likely very simple: they want to make sure that they will
stay out of reach of their natural predators and that they will
manage to find and catch prey that for lots of snake species is
often found up there among tree branches. Snakes probably
wouldn’t be harmed at all in a case when they would fall off of
a tree, but they still want to make sure that this will not
happen – just to be safe from the predators that might be down
there.
It is not easy to climb up – you might know this from trying to
climb up the rope during gym in high school. However, when it
comes to snakes, this effort is well worth it. As we have
already determined, some animals use their claws (cats), while
other use their limbs (monkeys). A snake can strongly wrap their
entire body around the tree and climb up. Some snake species
spend their entire life up in a tree, while others spend time in
trees while they are young to stay away from predators but will
spend the majority of their adult time down on the ground.
Styles of climbing vary from one species to another, but as has
already been mentioned, they use lots of their muscular force to
climb up – far more than would actually be necessary. Scientists
who have investigated how snakes climb up trees and how much
force they put into it have determined that they use this much
energy in climbing primarily to be sure that they will not fall
off. They consider this to be a more rational approach – because
in case of a fall, they would have to climb again from the zero
point. It is better to be safe than sorry, right?
Some snakes that live in trees can glide out of the trees,
leading people to ask, do
snakes jump?. For more information about Do snakes climb
trees, go to my Snake
Removal - How to Get Rid of Snakes home page.
Read more facts about snakes:
How do snakes sleep?
Do more snakes live
in urban areas, or wild areas?
How to keep snakes out of my garden
Where can I get free snake removal?
Do snakes hibernate?
Types of Florida water snakes