What adaptations do Burmese pythons have?
Special anatomical, physiological orbehavioral adaptations: Pythons are able to swallow theirprey whole because of their hinged jaws. These jaws separate and this allowthem to intake an “object four to five times as wide as its head”. Pythons have no legs as allother snakes no not.
How do pythons swallow their prey?
They attack in an ambush, wrapping themselves around their prey and crushing it – squeezing tighter as the victim exhales. They kill by suffocation or cardiac arrest within minutes. Pythons swallow their food whole. Their jaws are connected by very flexible ligaments so they can stretch around large prey.
How do snake mouths work?
In snakes, the lower bones of the jaw, or mandibles, are not connected like they are in mammals. At the front, each mandible is attached by a stretchy ligament. This is how the snake can open its mouth wider than its body. The mandibles move independently of each other, slowly inching the prey into the throat.
How does a Burmese python keep its mouth open?
Burmese pythons have special tubing in the bottom of their mouths that always remains open to one side. This allows a python to take in air, even while its mouth is completely stretched out and full when it is swallowing large prey.
What kind of animals do Burmese pythons eat?
They’ve been known to eat small and large mammals alike, and have even proven to strangle and swallow deer and alligators whole. In the wild Burmese Pythons often eat deer, monitor lizards, large rodents, and ground-dwelling birds. Like many snakes, they are a sit-and-wait type of predator.
How does a Python keep dirt out of its mouth?
Their jaws are countersunk, lower jaw fitting inside the upper jaw, which keeps dirt out of the snake’s mouth. Like most snakes, pythons don’t chase after their prey. Instead, they are ambush hunters.
How big is the intestine of a Burmese python?
As a rule, the Burmese python likes prey to be 1.5 times as wide as the snake itself. These snakes have a flexible digestive tract, though. According to the Journal of Experimental Biology, this snake’s small intestine can swell to three times its fasting size.
