The Surprising Reason Snake Embryos Coil to the Right
New research suggests that snake embryos consistently coil to the right due to a growth mismatch between their rapidly lengthening body and a slower-growing, detached gut. This mechanism, revealed by CT scans, causes the embryo to buckle and twist into a right-handed spiral, linking to how snakes develop their long bodies.
Why it matters
This discovery provides fundamental insights into vertebrate development and evolutionary biology, explaining a previously unknown aspect of snake embryogenesis and their unique body plan.
A mismatch in growth between a snake embryo’s body and gut may explain why its first coils consistently turn to the right.
As a snake embryo grows inside its egg, its increasingly long body curls into a spiral before it has muscles to move. New research suggests that the gut helps shape those first coils by holding back a body that is growing faster than the gut itself.
An international team led by Canadian researchers found evidence that this mismatch in growth makes the embryo buckle and twist into a right-handed spiral. Their study, published August 31, 2026, in Current Biology , links this coiling ability to how snakes develop the longest bodies of any vertebrate animals before hatching.
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