The Explanation of Why Python Can Swallow Bigger than its Head

VIVA – Python is known has ability to open its mouths very wide or more than its heads. Pythons can swallow their victims or prey alive in a very large size. So, why do pythons open their mouths so wide? Here's the explanation.

When compared to other snakes, this python is indeed very large, reaching about 18 feet (5.5 meters) in length and weighing up to 200 pounds (91 kilograms).

However, a study published in the Journal of Integrative Organismal Biology on Aug 25, found that thickness is not what determines why a hungry python can devour a very large meal. Instead, the secret lies in how wide the snakes open their mouths.

Biologists from the University of Cincinnati wanted to test how far euthanized Burmese python (Python bivittatus) could stretch their jaws for a snack.

So far, the understanding that snakes can release their jaws to swallow prey is wrong.

In fact, an elastic piece of connective tissue extends from the snake's braincase, or cranium, to its lower jaw, allowing the animal to devour the ginormous maggots.

"The main thing about snakes is that they don't dislocate at all during the process of swallowing their prey," a lead author of the study and a biologist and professor at the University of Cincinnati, Bruce Jayne said as quoted from Livescience site on Friday, October 7, 2022.

"But the joints they have between their bones are very movable. Unlike the human jaw, which is one part, in snakes, there are two parts. And between the two parts, there is connective tissue, skin, and muscle." Bruce Jayne added.

All of these parts fit together to form a mechanism that allows a non-venomous python to open its mouth wide and swallow its prey.

When an animal is in the snake's grasp, the tortuous predator wraps its long body around the victim to constrict its blood flow before swallowing it whether the victim is dead or still breathing.

Using a series of 3D-printed plastic probes of varying sizes, the scientists tested different individual pythons with probes in increasing sizes, measuring the maximum amount each animal could open.

The largest probe is 9 inches or 22 centimeters in diameter. Only one snake was able to stretch its slit wide enough to accommodate a giant probe: a python that weighed about 130 pounds (59 kg) and measured 14 feet (4.3 m) long.

In addition, the study also found that just because snakes have adaptable jaws, not all snake species can open their mouths as wide as the Burmese python.

When biologists tested the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis), another invasive species that can eat birds, lizards, and small rodents, they found that the brown tree snake, which is about the same length as the Burmese python but much smaller, cannot gaping as wide as the other types.