Egg snake: for the sake of food, it extremely stretches its throat and has grown “teeth” on its spine (8 photos)

An American herpetologist compared the width of the mouth of the African egg snake with other legless reptiles and found that its mouth opens 2.5-7 times wider than that of other snakes! And this, of course, is very interesting, but it is not entirely clear: why?





That's why!

And then, all 9 species of the African egg snake genus became addicted to a terrible food drug: the incredibly resource-rich contents of the eggs. But getting to the coveted supply of food is extremely difficult. It is protected by a powerful shell, and egg snakes have neither the size nor the strength to bite through it. They are only 20 to 100 centimeters long!



Uhhh, now I’ll get a dose of satiety!

It would seem that if the size doesn’t allow it, then just don’t open your mouth to someone else’s squirrel. There are hundreds of species of snakes in the world that feed on rats and insects. But the egg snakes didn’t want to give up the incredibly nutritious substance, so they developed an entire operation to crack the shell.



A snack in three acts.

Most often, snakes go out in search of food at night, when their main enemies - birds of prey and larger snakes - are sleeping. They look for nests on the forest floor, in the crowns of trees and even on mountain rocks. And when the reptile finds the coveted meal, the snake is pulled onto the testicle like a stocking on a leg. The thin bones of the skull obediently move apart, and the ligaments and skin are stretched to extreme values.



MORE!!! I CAN SWALLOW MORE!!!

Give the egg snake a couple of minutes of rest and it will swallow the egg. But the process itself will not end there. The muscular muscles of the esophagus will push the testicle deeper until it hits... the processes of the spine? Yes that's right. The outgrowths of the cervical vertebrae penetrate directly into the reptile's esophagus! Strong and sharp bones will easily pierce the shell, after which the contents of the egg will flow into the stomach, and the rest will simply be regurgitated by the reptile.



Spine of snakes. In the red oval are those same “spine” teeth.

This diet is good for everyone: it is nutritious, tasty, eggs do not give change and are generally completely inert when eaten. But it also has two serious drawbacks. The first one: excessive fixation on one food source. Egg snakes are capable of swallowing eggs up to 5 centimeters in diameter and weighing as much as themselves. Theoretically, even rats and mice would fit into them, but the reptile forgot how to catch them.



Doctor, my neck is a little swollen, look?

Thin bones break with any resistance from the prey, the teeth have turned into small stumps, and the opener spine simply will not allow the prey to pass beyond the cervical region. And it will not be possible to immobilize the victim: animals have no poison at all. Although they pretend to be toxic when encountering predators, posing as a white-bellied epha, this is only a fiction designed to save their own skin.



For example, an egg eater (on the left) mimics the poisonous white-bellied ephas.

Another problem that animals face is the seasonality of food. Most birds nest 1-2 times a year, which is why egg snakes are forced to spend the off-season on a starvation diet. Well, when the birds begin to breed, our heroes go into a frenzy and try to get as many doses of the nutritious intra-egg broth as possible. After all, they will be able to survive the next hunger strike season only thanks to their fat reserves.



Bon appetit!