Boas move different parts of the chest independently of each other, so as not to suffocate when crushing and digesting prey.
- Snakes that compress their prey before swallowing must find a way to breathe.
- This is because their lungs are limited in compressing and digesting lunch.
- Boas breathe in different parts of the chest when eating prey
- Without a diaphragm, experts say, snakes rely entirely on the movement of their ribs.
In humans, the later stages of pregnancy can be difficult because the fetus presses on the woman’s diaphragm and makes breathing difficult.
But some snakes have the same problem every time they eat.
This is because those who squeeze their prey before swallowing it have to overcome breathing problems when their lungs are restricted.
“Without a diaphragm, they rely entirely on the movement of their ribs,” said John Capano of Brown University in the US.
He said that snakes such as boas regulate which area of the chest they use to inhale, depending on whether they are resting, strangling an animal, or digesting food.
Snakes such as boas (pictured) regulate which chest area they use to inhale, depending on whether they are resting, strangling an animal, or digesting food.
UDAP: BASIC FACTS
The boa constrictor can grow to a whopping 13 feet (4 m) in length and live up to 30 years.
It has no venom, but uses small, hook-shaped teeth to bite and hold prey by wrapping its rings around it.
Boas will go for a variety of different size prey.
The menu is dominated by rodents, but snakes have also been known to eat monkeys and feral pigs.
Like most snakes, the boa constrictor has a special, “flexibly attached” lower jaw that allows them to swallow prey whole.
The researchers tested this theory by placing a blood pressure cuff on the ribs of the boas to restrict their movements.
They found that the back of a snake’s lung works like a bellows, sucking in air when the fins farther forward can no longer move because they compress the prey to death.
Capano attached tiny metal markers to two of each reptile’s ribs – one a third of the way down the snake’s body and the other halfway – to visualize the movement of the ribs using X-rays.
“Either the animals didn’t mind the handcuffs or they defended themselves and hissed in an attempt to get the researcher to leave,” Capano said, adding that “it was an opportunity to measure some of the biggest breaths that snakes take.”
By reconstructing the movements of the ribs of boas, it became clear that the snakes could independently control the movements of the ribs in different parts of the chest.
When they were clamped with a blood pressure cuff at a third of their body length, the animals breathed using their ribs farther back, pulling the ribs back and tilting them up to draw air into the lungs.
However, when the ribs closer to the back of the lung were narrowed, the snakes breathed with the ribs closer to the head.
In fact, the ribs at the far end of the lung only moved when the anterior ribs were compressed, drawing air deep into the area, even though it has a poor blood supply and does not provide oxygen to the body, the researchers say.
Researchers have found that the back of a snake’s lung works like a bellows, sucking in air when the fins further forward can no longer move because they compress the prey to death.
They added that the far end of the lung behaved like a bellows, pulling air through the front of the lung when it could no longer breathe on its own.
Capano and his team recorded the nerve signals that control the rib muscles when squeezed by a blood pressure cuff, and filmed a snake while eating with a GoPro, showing that the ribs are not just immobile.
There were no nerve signals in the tense muscles, the researchers said, and the snakes switched to breathing by activating another set of ribs further down the body.
Since subduing and digesting prey is one of the most energetic things these snakes can do, it was probably important that they develop the ability to adapt to where they breathe before adopting their new rib-obstructing lifestyle to ensure that they won’t choke. .
“It would be difficult for snakes to develop these behaviors without the ability to breathe,” Capano said.
The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
ARE PEOPLE BORN WITH A FEAR OF SNAKE AND SPIDER?
Researchers from MPI CBS in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Uppsala in Sweden conducted a study that showed that even babies have a stress response when they see a spider or a snake.
They found that this happens as early as six months of age, when babies are still very immobile and had no way of knowing that these animals could be dangerous.
“When we showed children images of a snake or spider instead of a flower or fish of the same size and color, they responded with significantly larger pupils,” says Stephanie Hoehl, lead researcher on the pivotal study and MPI neuroscientist. CBS and University of Vienna.
“In conditions of constant light, this change in pupil size is an important signal for the activation of the brain’s noradrenergic system responsible for stress responses.
“Accordingly, even the youngest children seem to be stressed by these animal groups.”
The researchers concluded that the fear of snakes and spiders has an evolutionary origin, and, like primates or snakes, the mechanisms in our brain allow us to identify objects and react to them very quickly.