This trick keeps snakes from suffocating as they squeeze and swallow their prey
How do boa constrictors breathe while constricting their victims? A new study finds that snakes can switch which set of ribs they use to draw in air as they crush their meal before devouring it.
Snakes that constrict and then swallow enormous prey have evolved a way to keep themselves from suffocating while they do it.
When the scaley coils closest to the snake's head are super busy squeezing its dinner to death, the reptile can simply change how it breathes so that it uses ribs and muscles farther down the length of its body.
That's according to a new that used an inflated blood pressure cuff to immobilize different parts of boa constrictors' bodies while simultaneously doing X-ray scans to monitor their ribs' movement. What researchers observed is
