Swallowed by a Snake

This deer was an unlucky victim of a hungry Burmese python that swallowed it whole. Snakes don’t have teeth for chewing, so the python had to open really wide to gulp down its massive meal!

Bruce Jayne, a biologist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, recently measured the mouth of this python as part of a study. He found it could open its mouth wider than any Burmese python ever measured: 26 centimeters (10 inches) wide. That’s large enough to fit an entire regulation-size basketball!

Snakes have an extra set of bones that most vertebrates—animals with backbones—lack. The bones, found on either side of snakes’ jaws, allow them to open their  mouths extremely wide. Snakes also have super-elastic skin and tendons—flexible tissue that connects muscle to bone—around their mouths. These features help them extend their mouths wide enough to consume large prey.

Burmese pythons are an invasive, or harmful nonnative, species in Florida. Whenever a Burmese python is discovered in the wild, animal control officials kill the snake to keep it from preying on local wildlife. By measuring the snakes’ bites, Jayne and other researchers hoped to learn more about which native animals pythons might be gobbling up.

If you live in or are visiting Florida, you don’t need to be too concerned about a python hunting and swallowing you whole. Burmese pythons have rarely been known to attack or eat humans in the wild. Plus, they’re very slow. If a python were to slowly slither up to you, says Jayne, “just walk away.”