How to improve an animal

[Supercommunist]

Another sort of spec evo thread.

Discuss how you would improve a type of animal while keeping their overall fundemental design intact.

For instance, snakes suffer a rather steep mobility disadvantage due to their lack of limbs. How would you optimize their ability to move across ground?

[creature386]

I'm not sure if I like the way the OP is phrased because it implies goal-oriented evolution. Though improving an animal in one particular category sounds like a fun exercise.

To make snakes faster without growing them legs, one could have them use sidewinder-like locomotion strategies (though that might disadvantage them in other categories).