Video | A snake lover built robotic legs for one person, and that’s crazy – Teach me about science

Many of you probably know, about 150 million years ago, ancient snakes roamed with limbs that looked like legs… did snakes have legs?

Just as you read it, these animals that today have the unbeatable ability to move on surfaces with more than 400 vertebrae, really strong muscles and scales at the bottom, have legs.

Although even with these limbs they were able to slip and slide into tight areas, it is thought that as generations survived, evolution did its job of inducing the formation of shorter and shorter legs, until they finally disappeared.

As an example, we have snakes and snags, which have preserved a vestigial organ of their hind leg structures, known as spurs, while more advanced snakes have completely lost their legs.

For their part, a group of researchers discovered two years ago that snakes lost their legs due to three mutations in the genetic shift, which controls the activity of the gene (sonic hedgehog) necessary for the formation of limbs, and also that although they preserved the genetic mechanism of leg development, as in lizards, these genetic changes disrupt it.

In light of this, an American hobbyist engineer, Allen Pan, devised a way to return snakes with their missing legs using technology and ingenuity, then devised a “prosthetic”-style device to make the snake walk with the result insane.

In this way, after visiting a pet store to observe details and see how the lizards perform their walking movements, he built an artificial snake’s legs with a transparent tube, where the animal’s body would go, relied on four robotic limbs, and finally, with a little programming, achieved his goal: a “prosthetic limb” To return the legs of snakes.

Later a snake breeder who loaned him a snake visited and tested his invention, as evidenced by the following video:

Hello, I’m walking here! pic.twitter.com/KpSiqociAl

– Allen Pan (@AnyTechnology) August 13, 2022

As impressive as this may sound, the truth is that although there is still a certain mystery about the evolution of snakes and not all answers are known, biology does not usually run randomly, the loss of legs in these reptiles will certainly give some The advantages are in their survival, which is why, after many generations, these limbs have been dispensed with.

Since there are two stances, those who defend those snakes have evolved a legless form to swim better in aquatic environments, such as eels, or those who defend that happening on land where life without legs can give them the advantage of being more slippery and agile to hunt their prey in narrow places.

Thus, as described ScienceAlert “In a snake’s normal life, having four legs would probably be a hindrance, so giving snakes’ legs back might not be the gift Ban was hoping for.”

Finally, remember not to experience anything similar at home, snakes are animals that can attack if they feel threatened, so respect their life and protect the reptile and yourself, and do not handle them under any circumstances.