Abstract
THE general notion that snakes attain great speed of movement is not supported by timed observations made in the United States, and described in a paper read by Dr. Walter Mosaner before the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Berkeley, California (Science Service, Washington, D.C.). Of seven typical North American snakes tested, the red racer was the speediest with a record of three and a third miles an hour, while the Cali-fornian boa, moving at a rate of only a quarter of a mile an hour, was the slowest. The author considers that the mistaken idea about the speed of snakes arose from the deceptiveness of the smooth, fluent, undulatory movement, but he admitted that his records might possibly be broken by snakes doing sudden bursts under stress of excitement, and by some tropical snakes which may double or treble the American records.
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Speed of Snakes. Nature 134, 318 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134318d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134318d0