Brown boiga overcomes air gaps in length to one and a half meters across and over two meters vertically.

The brown tree snake (brown boiga) appeared on the small Pacific island of GUAM about 70 years ago. Few people could assume that it will destroy 11 out of 12 local species of birds that the density of snakes on the island will be two thousand individuals per square kilometer, and the island's economy will suffer huge losses due to the fact that every few days snakes will cause a power failure.

Brown boiga has phenomenal abilities to climbing, and it costs nothing to jump from a tree standing near the tower of power.

Bruce Jane from the University of Cincinnati (USA) several years biomechanical studies of the ability of this snake. Its main feature the following: brown boiga without problems overcomes the distance between branches: in the three-meter length she can "fly" five-foot horizontal failure. And if she needs to get to a branch that is not at the same height, but much higher? In this case, the ability of the snake, and is beyond praise.

Bruce Jane with a colleague Gregory Byrnes from the new York College of Siena thoroughly tested the ability of brown Bogi to overcome gaps, cracks and crevices that may be on the way of reptiles. It turned out, the snake is easier to climb than to stretch through the horizontal gap. In the second case it is more difficult to struggle with the forces of gravity, and the longer it will stretch without support, the stronger it will pull to the earth. Going through horizontal gaps, boiga can be overcome only those that do not exceed 58% of its body length. But the result still is impressive: more than half of his body snake can hold horizontally on weight. Direct dips her, of course, are easier than those where the opposite line is: in this case, curving body, a snake have to sacrifice another 13% of the length of the bridge.

But when the snake need to get up, gravity is not so much troubles up and it can stretch out almost 82% of its length. Interestingly, while boiga able slightly to build on knots tail, just as do climbers, jumping from stone to stone. This "jump" allows reptiles to overcome even greater gaps between the branches. Zoologists believe that boiga represents something like a transitional point from a normal, so to speak, crawling serpent known to soaring wood snakes. The ability to jump and hover could develop from these initial efforts to crawl through too great chasm between the trees.

The results of researches scientists are going to publish in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

It is quite clear that the snake with such mountaineering skills can reach any of the bird's nest. The practical conclusion is this: people need to leave wide air border between power lines and trees. Given the three-meter length local snakes, such border should be at least 1.5 m in length and 2, 2 m in height. Along the way, zoologists are urged to take all measures so that this snake-climber go further - for example, the Hawaiian Islands.

Based on the materials ScienceNOW.