The rapid strike of snakes has long been of interest in terms of mechanical performance. Recently, several nonvenomous taxa have been found to strike with the same incredible strike velocity and acceleration as the high-performing vipers. However, little is known regarding how these patterns change through ontogeny. Here I present ontogenetic strike data on ten ball pythons (Python regius) over a three year time period, from birth to sexual maturity. I found that performance declined rapidly over the first 18 months in nearly all kinematic measures. This puts the adult data out of the currently developing trend of high performance being maintained across the diversity of snakes. The underlying cause of the decline in performance is unclear, but there are several avenues of behavior, morphology, biomechanics, and ecology to be investigated.

中文翻译：

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球蟒（Python regius）打击表现的个体发育：一项为期三年的纵向研究

在机械性能方面，蛇的快速打击长期以来一直受到关注。最近，已发现几种无毒类群以与高性能毒蛇相同的令人难以置信的速度和加速度进行攻击。然而，关于这些模式如何通过个体发育发生变化，我们知之甚少。在这里，我展示了从出生到性成熟的三年时间段内 10 条球蟒（Python regius）的个体发生攻击数据。我发现在前 18 个月内，几乎所有运动学测量的性能都迅速下降。这使成人数据脱离了当前在蛇的多样性中保持高性能的发展趋势。性能下降的根本原因尚不清楚，但有几个途径需要研究行为、形态、生物力学和生态学。