The authors acknowledged that these results were inconsistent, mostly because the snakes kept taking off their masks. The pressure difference over that fixed resistance yields the flow rate. The snake breaths passed through with a PVC tube containing a fine metal mesh to provide some resistance to the airflow. The team used pneumotachography (often used to study sleep apnea and related disorders in humans) to monitor the airflow in five boa constrictors, fabricating small lightweight masks for the snakes out of plastic bottles. The ribs halfway along the body don't move/contribute to breathing. This X-ray movie shows the ribs one-third of the way down the snake's body moving to breathe. The reptiles essentially use the far end of their lungs as a bellows to pull in air whenever the ribs closer to the head are obstructed. Boa constrictors, they discovered, have a remarkable ability to selectively use different sections of their rib cage for breathing during constriction. They rely entirely on the motion of their ribs to breathe.īiologists at Brown University and Dickinson College conducted a series of experiments to find out more, and they described their results in a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Regardless of what's on the menu, how do the snakes still manage to breathe as they crush an animal to death, since that constriction also uncomfortably squeezes the boas' own ribs? Unlike mammals (including humans), boa constrictors don’t have a separate diaphragm. They have also been known to chow down on even larger prey, including monkeys, wild pigs, and ocelots. The boa uses its muscles to move its prey down the length of its body to the stomach, where the unlucky varmint is digested over the next four to six days.īoa constrictors mostly consume various medium-sized rodents, lizards, and birds. Then the boa unhinges its jaw and swallows the prey whole. The constrictor cuts off blood flow to the heart and brain. First, the snake strikes and latches onto the prey with its teeth, then it coils its body tightly around the poor creature and slowly squeezes the life from it. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based.Watching a boa constrictor capture and consume its prey is quite something. This is a list of references for Giant boa.
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