Rolling snakes exist, and a new study measured how fast they go. Dwarf reed snakes in Southeast Asia roll along the ground at peak speeds of 1.72 to 3.69 meters per second, about four times their top slithering speed, according to Toho University’s release on a study in Current Biology.
How Fast Rolling Snakes Move
The researchers filmed the snakes from several angles and measured peak forward speed while rolling, the release says. The range was 1.72 to 3.69 meters per second. That is about 3.8 to 8.3 mph, a conversion of the release’s figures. The release says that is roughly four times the peak speed of lateral undulation, the side-to-side slither most snakes use. If that ratio holds across the whole range, the snakes’ slithering peak would sit between about 0.43 and 0.92 meters per second.
That is a calculation from the release’s figures, not a number the researchers reported. The study is titled “Locomotor kinematics and head stabilization in rolling snakes” and lists Yosuke Kojima, Ibuki Fukuyama, Mohamad Yazid Hossman, Clement Het Kaliang and Kanto Nishikawa as authors. Kojima is a zoologist at Toho University in Japan, according to Defector’s reporting on the paper.
What a Stroke is and How the Roll Works
The team found that a roll is not a simple tumble. In each cycle the snake rolls on one side of its body, then swings an arched section of the body downward beside its head, the release says. The researchers call that swing a “stroke.” The side that touches the ground changes with each cycle, and the stroke alternates between left and right.
Defector, in its own reporting with Kojima, said he first saw the rolling and then worked out the mechanics by reviewing slowed-down video and mapping the motion in three dimensions. Kojima wrote to Defector that the movement first amazed him and that he wanted to learn more. Defector also said the animals were placed on a narrow racetrack and nudged to start, and that the footage was analyzed frame by frame. Kojima said the snakes could not simply be rolling their whole bodies, Defector reported.
Why the Head Stays Steady
The release says the rear of the body rotates considerably while the head stays aimed in the direction of travel and stays at a nearly constant height. The effect is strongest at higher speeds. The researchers suggest this helps the snake keep control while it moves. The release frames the finding as an example of behavioral innovation: an animal reaching an ability that its body shape alone would not predict.
The Earlier Record of Cartwheeling Snakes
The behavior is not new to science. A 2023 paper in Biotropica described it in the dwarf reed snake Pseudorabdion longiceps, and the publisher called it the first documented case of active rolling in snakes. Some snakes roll passively, the 2023 release said, but this species launches its coils into the air and rolls down inclines repeatedly.
Evan Seng Huat Quah of Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the corresponding author of that paper, said in the release: “We believe that this behavior may be more widespread in other small snake species.” He suggested the subfamily Calamariinae as a place to look and blamed the lack of records on how secretive the animals are. The new work gives that idea some support. According to Defector, Kojima’s team went to Borneo to study both dwarf reed snakes and larger reed snakes. Defector reported that every dwarf reed snake tested could roll and the larger reed snakes could not.
Other Snakes That Break the Slither Rule
The release describes dwarf reed snakes as among the few animals known to use active rolling to escape. The 2023 Wiley release listed the usual snake defenses as fleeing, camouflage, coloration, odors, death-feigning and intimidation, and said the dwarf reed snake adds rolling to that list. Defector put the finding in a longer list of snake stunts. It named flying snakes that glide through Southeast Asian forests, brown tree snakes in Guam that climbed stovepipes, horned adders that launch themselves and legless lizards that jump.
What Scientists Still Do Not Know
Kojima told Defector the roll may demand a lot of energy, and that researchers “don’t yet know how long the snakes can sustain it.” How the movement evolved and whether other snake groups can do it are also open, based on the reporting and the release.Jake Socha, a biomechanics researcher at Virginia Tech who was not involved in the study, said the video made him ask whether it was real or generated by AI.
He told Defector, “It’s definitely real, and that’s kind of why it’s jaw-dropping.” Socha added that how exactly the snake’s body produces the motion is still an open question. Defector also said that the dwarf reed snakes live only in Southeast Asia. That keeps them separate from the North American hoop snake, a legend whose sightings have never been verified.
