What does it take to scale a near-vertical dam wall, hang from a single toe, or invent a brand new way of moving that went undiscovered for a century? From the peaks of the European Alps to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, here are some of nature's most remarkable climbers.
Best climbers in the animal kingdom
Bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis
Bighorn sheep, aptly named for their majestic horns, perhaps don’t look like skilled climbers – but don’t let their looks deceive you.
Bighorn sheep are native to North America, and they occupy extreme habitats where exceptional climbing skills are a matter of survival.
Rocky Mountain bighorns (Ovis canadensis canadensis) can be found in high-elevation ranges in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming; Sierra Nevada bighorns (Ovis canadensis sierrae) specialise in steep granite peaks, and desert bighorns (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) thrive in hot, dry canyons across Arizona, Nevada and California.
Their secret weapon is their hooves – with a hard outside rim for digging into the ground and a soft and spongy inside to aid traction. They have a split that works like a pincer, holding onto rocks, while the claws higher up on the foot act as brakes if the sheep starts to slide.
Desert bighorn sheep can manoeuvre ridges as narrow as two inches, jump 20 feet from ledge to ledge, run 30mph on flat ground and climb slopes at up to 15 mph. Rocky Mountain bighorns can even turn mid-air, landing on small ledges of rock.
Their eyes, positioned on the sides of their heads, with rectangular pupils, give them peripheral vision of up to 320 degrees – vital for spotting predators (such as mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, and bobcats) and judging the precise distances between ledges.
Geckos, Gekkota
There’s no adhesive involved in the extraordinary climbing skills of geckos – their secret is millions of microscopic hair-like structures on their toe pads. Those structures, called setae, are thinner than a human hair and create a molecular attraction between the gecko’s feet and the surface.
There are millions of setae on a gecko’s foot – and there are thousands of tiny structures called spatula on each of them. Geckos create Van der Waals force (distance-dependent interaction between atoms and molecules) by putting their spatulae on the surface material. More spatulae imply more surface area, and since a gecko’s foot has a lot of them, the contact creates enough force to support the animal’s body while climbing.
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In 2002, while studying the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko), scientists determined that one seta can produce an average force of up to 200 micronewtons. For reference, in theory, if a gecko could use all of its – on average – 6.5 million setae, it would be able to hold up a 130 kilograms (290 pounds) person.
According to a 2008 study, geckos can climb vertical surfaces at speeds of over 1 metre per second.
The largest living species of gecko is the New Caledonian giant gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus), capable of growing 360mm-430 milimetres (14-17 inches) long, with a weight range between 250-500 grams.
This species is considered an example of island gigantism. Because it’s significantly larger, it naturally possesses more setae on its toes – it also has large claws that further aid it in climbing.
Alpine ibex, Capra ibex
The Alpine ibex occupies steep, rough terrain at elevations of 1,800 to 3,300 metres (5,900-10,800 feet) across the European Alps.
Their hooves work on the same principle as the bighorns, but with one key difference: a more concave underside, almost suction-cup like, giving them grip on more challenging surfaces. Ibex can jump almost 2 metres (6 feet) straight up, without a running start.
They’re most known for famously scaling the near-vertical face of the Cingino Dam in northern Italy to lick mineral salts from the stone. It’s just the females and kids, though – they’re lighter and have shorter legs than adult males. Kids have been observed at nearly 50 metres (160 feet) ascending in a zigzag and descending in a straight path.
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What’s interesting is that the friction between the ibex’s hooves and the dam walls was measured in a range higher than rubber on concrete surfaces – which is already pretty sticky.
Margay, Leopardus wiedii
The margay is a small wild cat native to Central and South America. It’s highly arboreal, meaning it spends a significant portion of its life up in the trees.
The margay looks quite close to the ocelot, with similar markings, although it’s smaller. It’s sometimes even referred to as the ‘little ocelot’ or ‘tree ocelot’.
Most cats are impressive climbers, but the margay takes the cake. Thanks to mobile toes and very flexible ankles (it’s able to rotate them 180°), it can hang from a branch by a single hind foot (while manipulating an object with its front feet) and even catch itself mid-fall with one paw and simply continue its climb. The cat’s long tail is also helpful to maintain balance while climbing.
A margay can jump eight feet straight into the air and 12 feet horizontally and is the only arboreal Neotropical felid able to climb headfirst down trees.
Margays are not just skilled climbers, but also cunning hunters – scientists in Brazil have observed a margay imitating the call of a baby pied tamarin monkey, successfully luring a group of pied tamarins closer. This hunting attempt ended up unsuccessful, but it remains the first documented case of a Neotropical predator using vocal mimicry to hunt.
Gibbons, Hylobates
Gibbons are the fastest of all tree-dwelling, non-flying mammals. They are true apes – not monkeys – with no tail, a broad chest, highly mobile shoulder joints and long, powerful arms specialised for swinging from tree to tree.
Their primary mode of locomotion, brachiation, involves swinging from branch to branch for distances of up to 15 metres, at speeds as fast as 55 kmph. They can also make leaps of up to 8 metres.
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Their unique secret weapon is their wrist – a ball-and-socket joint rather than a saddle joint like in humans, which makes it more flexible and able to rotate. This significantly reduces the amount of energy expended by the gibbon’s upper arm and torso and reduces stress placed on the shoulder joint.
Gibbon arms are twice the length of their body and about one and a half times the length of their legs.
Gibbons have two different modes of ‘travel’ – at slower speeds, they always keep one hand on a handhold, while at higher speeds, they switch to a motion that allows them to almost ricochet from branch to branch. It’s essentially controlled falling between grabs.
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Sun bear, Helarctos malayanus
Hiding in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia is the smallest bear species, the sun bear, standing nearly 70 centimetres at the shoulder and weighing 25-65 kilograms. This size is key to its climbing ability.
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The sun bear is uniquely adapted for climbing with its inward-turned front feet and flattened chest. It also has powerful forelimbs with large claws, and the pads of its paws are hairless, which helps in gripping trees. A sun bear can even ascend branchless tree trunks supported by its claws alone.
It’s the most arboreal (tree-dwelling) of all bears – it prefers to sunbathe or sleep in trees 2-7 metres above ground.
The sun bear is an omnivore, and its diet includes ants, bees, beetles, honey, termites, seeds and several kinds of fruit. Sun bears have the longest tongue relative to body size of any bear species – up to 25 centimetres (10 inches) long. The whole point of all that climbing is mostly to get food. The bear tears open hollow trees with its claws in search of bees and honey, then uses its tongue to extract it.
They’re also recognised for their intelligence – a 2019 study found that sun bears (a typically solitary species) can mimic each other’s facial expressions. Facial mimicry is a skill only found in humans, some other primates, and domestic dogs. But sun bears were observed doing it with precision only found in humans and gorillas.
Brown tree snake, Boiga irregularis
The brown tree snake is an arboreal snake native to eastern and northeastern coastal Australia, eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and many islands in Melanesia.
After WWII, the brown tree snake was accidentally introduced in Guam and is now infamous for being an invasive species responsible for a serious reduction of most of Guam’s 25 resident bird species. Ten of Guam’s 12 original forest bird species have been lost, and the remaining two are considered functionally extinct. The snake also caused many power outages over the years (it’s such a good climber, it can scale power poles).
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Part of what makes it so destructive is a climbing ability that wasn’t even documented until a 2021 study identified a never-before-seen mode of snake movement – lasso locomotion – used by brown tree snakes to climb smooth poles. Before this, for nearly a century, all snake locomotion had been categorised into four modes: rectilinear, lateral undulation, sidewinding and concertina.
The snake forms a single loop around a pole, securing itself by hooking its tail around its own body, then makes small bends within the loop and shifts them upward, essentially rising like a slow elevator.
