There’s a huge issue with an explosion of brown tree snakes on Guam but it turns out they have a secret weapon.
They can, it turns out, twist themselves into a lasso to climb:
Snakes slither, sidewind and have even been known to launch themselves from one tree to another. Now scientists have discovered another, rather startling form of serpentine movement: brown tree snakes on the island of Guam were observed tying their bodies into the shape of a lasso—and hitching themselves up smooth metal poles.
This “lasso locomotion” is a slow, strenuous process. But researchers say it probably allows snakes to climb wider, smoother trees than they would otherwise be able to scale and to snag prey that might otherwise be out of reach.
Stephanie Pappas, “Brown Tree Snakes Twist Themselves into ‘Lassos’ to Climb” at Scientific American
Paper. (open access)
Either the snake is smarter than we think or there is more intelligence in nature than some suppose.
Background on the snake: