Posted on Mar 25, 2022
This trick keeps snakes from suffocating as they squeeze and swallow their prey
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https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/ [login to see] /this-trick-keeps-snakes-from-suffocating-as-they-squeeze-and-swallow-their-prey
Snakes that constrict and then swallow enormous prey have evolved a way to keep themselves from suffocating while they do it.
When the scaley coils closest to the snake's head are super busy squeezing its dinner to death, the reptile can simply change how it breathes so that it uses ribs and muscles farther down the length of its body.
That's according to a new study that used an inflated blood pressure cuff to immobilize different parts of boa constrictors' bodies while simultaneously doing X-ray scans to monitor their ribs' movement. What researchers observed is that the snakes could easily shift to using different sets of ribs to draw in air like a bellows.
"I just found it remarkable that they had such fine control," says the study's author John Capano, who studies biomechanics at Brown University. "We see just particular regions of ribs get activated and other regions are completely quiet and don't move."
Snakes that constrict and then swallow enormous prey have evolved a way to keep themselves from suffocating while they do it.
When the scaley coils closest to the snake's head are super busy squeezing its dinner to death, the reptile can simply change how it breathes so that it uses ribs and muscles farther down the length of its body.
That's according to a new study that used an inflated blood pressure cuff to immobilize different parts of boa constrictors' bodies while simultaneously doing X-ray scans to monitor their ribs' movement. What researchers observed is that the snakes could easily shift to using different sets of ribs to draw in air like a bellows.
"I just found it remarkable that they had such fine control," says the study's author John Capano, who studies biomechanics at Brown University. "We see just particular regions of ribs get activated and other regions are completely quiet and don't move."
This trick keeps snakes from suffocating as they squeeze and swallow their prey
Posted from npr.org
Snakes
Wildlife
Science
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
Cpl Vic Burk I Used to Ride the Johnson County Bike Trails, I Used to Feel so Bad about Making a Speed Bump out of Snakes. Poor things would be across the Trail sunning themselves and Here I'd Go, "Thump, Bump" Never Saw them Soon Enough to Stop.
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