Tyrel sent me the video below of the African Egg Eating Snake. I dug around a bit and found this photo to give you a nice still to look at.
These snakes require ambition to feed their prodigious appetites. They feed exclusively on eggs, and often times the ovoids are several times larger than their heads. Once swallowed, spiny protrusions in the throat slice the egg shell, allowing the innards to be eaten and leaving the shell to be regurgitated in one piece.
Impressive. I find myself jealous of this snake's eating habits. I love the idea of eating one huge meal (dramatically, even) and then going without another meal for a couple weeks. Now that is efficiency! And eggs are so cheap these days...
Photo source: Paula
Now on to the video. Click only if you want to watch a snake swallow a massive egg. Who wouldn't?
Thanks for the snake, Tyrel.
Mar 13, 2007
Ambitious Appetite
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10 comments:
Helps if you start from the smallest end matey.
Damn! And also, ew, snake barf! ;-)
I've seen footage like this for years...and it still makes my jaw hurt to watch it!
--TwoDragons
Jawdropping!
;)
It's like giving birth...in REVERSE!!
Lol, my family has a dog that eats almost like that. ;)
Seriously though, how cool would it be to be able to unhinge your jaw and only have to eat like, once a month. I hate cooking. :D Of course it would help to be cold-blooded.
I imagine the snake must be very vulnerable like that. I wonder if that would be a good way to snake hunt. I mean, if you wanted to catch a specimen or maybe kill it or something. I bet it would work with big pythons swallowing whole pigs and stuff. If it was, like, terrorizing your village or something. And now I sound like a total crazy face. Pay no attention to me.
Fun Fact! You can keep these as pets (U.S.). I've seen them for sale. The only hitch is that they're next to impossible to feed unless they're adults. If you want to feed the neonates, you neeed a colony of finches to produce the eggs. Then you move up to quail eggs. And so on. Most of these die fairly quickly in captivity.
Hmm, Swintah. Would small cadbury eggs work? Those are delicious...
I have to admit...I'm jealous. It'd be such a time saver to eat an entire meal in one gulp.
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