Pythons have one more bone in their head than boas do and some additional teeth, and pythons are found in Africa, Asia, and Australia while boas live on those continents as well as North, Central, and South America. These snakes have some things in common: they are constrictors, killing their prey by wrapping around it and suffocating it, and they are considered primitive snakes with two lungs (most snakes have only one) and remnants of hind legs and pelvic bones.īut they have differences, too. That leaves two groups, the boas and the pythons. The first thing to note is that the anaconda is a kind of boa, not a separate type of snake. Boas, pythons, and anacondas: What's the difference? Because boa constrictors, reticulated pythons, and anacondas are some of the biggest snakes in the world, many people get confused about which is which. No worse for wear, the team released the lucky survivor back into the wild.įollow Jason Bittel on Twitter and Facebook. "We have no idea what was going on," says Boback, "but seemed totally fine." (Also see " Freshly Eaten Snake Makes Amazing Escape-Find Out How.") In the morning, they were surprised to discover the animals at either end of the observation tank, with the iguana alive and well. After the snake constricted its prey for an hour, the team collected both animals-assuming the iguana was dead-and went to bed. When you're an anaconda, you don't need venom to take down your prey, even if it's the world's largest rodent, a capybara, weighing nearly 100 pounds (45 kilograms)! Ectotherm's RevengeĪs interesting as his revelation is, Boback says there's still much we don't know.įor instance, there's evidence that boa constrictors have a tougher time killing ectotherms, animals such as lizards and snakes that rely on external heat to regulate their body temperatures.ĭuring a recent expedition to Honduras, for instance, Boback and several other scientists observed a boa constrictor attacking a spinytail iguana. Watch a video of an anaconda stalking a capybara. "If it doesn't get the attack exactly right, something big like a capybara can chew right through the body of an anaconda." "Almost every time an anaconda takes something down, it's putting its face on that animal," says Rosolie, who wasn't involved in the new research. ( Watch a video of an anaconda taking down its prey.) But a snake just has a mouth-making it extremely vulnerable. Think about other animals living alongside boa constrictors in tropical rain forests, says Rosolie: They have teeth, hooves, and claws capable of kicking and ripping. "That absolutely makes sense," says Paul Rosolie, a conservationist who has spent the last decade working with anacondas. The quicker the snakes can disable their prey, the lower the chance the predator will get hurt in the process. The team theorizes that killing by circulatory arrest has given all constricting snakes-which includes pythons and anacondas-an evolutionary advantage. Once blood flow ceases, organs with high metabolic rates-such as the brain, the liver, and the heart itself-begin to shut down. (See " Giant Python Meals That Went Bust.") "A boa constricting a small rat is generating the kind of pressure that would stop the blood flow in your arm," says Boback, whose study appears July 22 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.īut even this light pressure, when applied to a rat's torso, makes its system goes haywire, the team discovered. Surprisingly, the pressures at which the snakes cinched against the rats weren't all that remarkable. Then they fed the outfitted rats to captive boa constrictors and measured what happened to the lab rats. (Also see " Pictures: How a Python Can Swallow a Crocodile.") Vascular catheters measured blood pressure, for instance, while electrodes secured within the rats' chest cavities provided information about the heart's electrical activity. To better understand the snakes' constriction mechanism, Boback and his colleagues at Dickinson anesthetized lab rats and then rigged the animals with various instruments. If executed perfectly, the powerful squeeze causes the animal to pass out within a matter of seconds. Click here to read more: " Why We Were Totally Wrong About How Boa Constrictors Kill" Video courtesy Dickinson College JBoa constrictors kill their prey not by suffocating them but by cutting off their blood circulation, new research shows.
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