No matter what
kind of animal you are talking about, they all
have to eat, and snakes are no exception. They
must consume food to be able to survive. It is
just a fact of life.
However, eating food is a lot different process
for a snake than it is for a large number of the
animals on the earth. Many animals can use their
limbs to help them to tear apart and even serve
themselves the food. However, like a fish, a
snake must take in the food whole. It has no
appendages and does not have a huge series of
teeth like a shark. So it must basically take in
the whole meal and then work its way from there.
That sounds quite unappetizing for most human
beings. Consider that no one would take a
one-pound steak and swallow it whole, waiting
for their body to digest it. Well, let’s hope no
one would. However, this is the life that a
snake must follow. If it is going to get food it
is really its only choice.
So how do snakes eat then if this is what they
must do?
Well a snake is able to do some really unusual
things to be able to eat. To eat food, the snake
must actually take the entire animal into its
body to begin the digestion process. This means
that two things are very important. First, it
must be able to fit into the snake’s mouth and,
secondly, it must be able to be digested by the
snake. This is not as hard of a process as you
may think.
First, a snake is able to expand its mouth
fairly wide open. It cannot dislodge its jaws as
a common myth proposes, but is able to expand
its mouth large enough that the snake can take a
food into its mouth that is much larger than you
would think.
Secondly, a snake can expand its stomach to get
quite large. This allows it take it food that it
four or five times larger than the snake is in
diameter. You have heard of someone having an
elastic stomach? Well, this is the ultimate
example of that. The snake can do amazing things
because of its ability to expand its stomach.
Once inside the digest tract, the juices and
enzymes begin to do their work. Keep in mind
that this is not like a carwash of enzymes
spraying across the lump. This is a very slow
process, meaning it can take quite some time
before the meal is completely digested. If this
was a large animal that it took in then this may
also mean that the snake will be immobilized for
the most part as it cannot really moved well
with this big piece of food in its stomach.
Read more:
Snake
Control,
Venomous
Snakes of Florida,
How
to Identify Snakes,
How
to Kill Snakes.