Sammy saw the snake and snuck around its side.
Sally saw the snake and scampered down the path.
The snake saw Sammy...
and Sally...
and slithered away.
Did you ever wonder how snakes slither? Well, let me tell you. I am Slithers, the Snake and here is how we do it.
As you noticed, we don’t have legs but still get around quite well. We actually have 4 ways of moving. And since we don’t have legs we use our tummy scales and muscles to get us around.
Most of you think slithering is the only way we move. It is our most common way and you could think of it as your walking. We push off something like a bump on the ground or a rock to get going. Then we move in a wavy motion using our tummy scales and muscles to pull us along. It is called the Serpentine method but slithering is just fine.
We can hold on to something with our tail portion, even the ground, and spring our front part forward. Then we drop the front part, hang on, and pull our back part along. Maybe this is like your running as we can go pretty fast. It is called the Concertina method but slithering is just fine.
In the sand, mud, or on slippery rocks we move along in a funny way. It is like your hopping. It’s hard to tell you how we do it. It looks like we toss our head forward, but off to the side, not straight ahead. Then the rest of our body follows in a sideways motion. It is called Sidewinding but slithering is just fine.
Sometimes you slowly crawl on your tummy. Well, so do we. When we need to be quiet and move very slowly, we use some of our wide scales on our back part to grip the ground. Then we push straight ahead with the others. It is called the Rectilinear method but slithering is just fine.
People walk, run, hop, and crawl. We snakes serpentine, concertina, sidewind, and rectilinear. And we both get to where we want to go.
Wow! After talking to you about the way we move, I guess it is easier just to say we SLITHER.
