Caught right-handed: Mystery of coiling snake embryos explained
An international team led by Canadian researchers has found evidence explaining why snake embryos form a curious spiral. This ability to coil as embryos enables snakes to hatch with the longest bodies of all vertebrates.
A team of researchers, led by Dr. Tetsuto Miyashita from the Canadian Museum of Nature, has discovered why snake embryos form a right-handed spiral as they develop. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, reveals that the embryos coil into a spiral while they are tethered by their gut, which is slower to grow than the rest of the body.
This results in a buckling and twisting of the body towards the yolk, which is located on the left side of the embryo. The researchers conducted their investigation during a COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when they searched for images of snake embryos in literature and museum collections. They found that around the time of hatching, some embryos may coil left-handed as well, but the majority will be right-handed.
This discovery offers new insights into the evolution of snakes' unique body form and could potentially be applied to understanding other spiral forms in nature.
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