How can a snake swallow food that is bigger in size than its muoth

Snakes cannot chew their food. They have small teeth, which point backwards and are used to draw food into their mouth. Whatever a snake kills, it must swallow full, usually headfirst so that limbs, furs or feathers don't get trapped on their way down.

The jaws of the snake have developed two unusual features, they have a freeing mechanism that unlocks the jaws so that they can open wide, and the lower jaw is multi-hinged, giving it greater expansion. The combination of these two factors enables a snake to cover prey that is larger in diameter than the snake's body.

The process of swallowing the entire prey is very laborious and in other animals it would block off the air supply. Snakes have a mobile opening to their windpipe, which is thrust out safely from one side of their mouth, allowing them to breathe even while they are swallowing

Does a cobra really dance to the tune of a snake charmer?

The snake charmers play a harmless trick on spectators, by making it look as if the cobra is dancing to their tunes. To the cobra, the music is irrelevant because it cannot hear anything. When it is suddenly released into the open from the darkness, it is threatened and reacts by rising and spreading its hood. It mistakes the swaying pipe of the charmer for another snake, and the movements of the snake charmer hold its attention. Unlike humans, a snake cannot swivel its eyes, so the cobra bobs and sways its head in tune with the movement of the pipe, to keep a close watch on it. This gives the impression that the snake is dancing to the music played by the snake charmer.

What is a constrictor?

Snakes, which kill their prey by constriction, that is, by squeezing them until they are suffocated are called constrictors. Constrictors are non-poisonous snakes. Python's and Boa's are constrictors.

How do snakes move forward?

Snakes have descended from four-legged ancestors. Some primitive snakes, such as boas and pythons still have remnants of their hind legs in the form of small protrusions in their bodies.

Losing their legs has given lot of advantages to snakes. They can slip into very small openings, such as nests or burrows of prey and they can also hide from their enemies - other larger snakes, birds of prey or animals like the mongoose,

Snakes have developed long and extremely supple backbones, to give them swift movement. The snake spine is made up of several hundred vertebrae, each of which is joined, to a pair of mobile ribs, by muscle tendons. Some of these tendons connect adjacent ribs, while others join ribs that are several vertebrae apart. These tendons combined with muscles allow a snake's ribs to swivel, and exert a rippling backward pressure on the surface over which the snake is travelling.

Snakes can move faster by using a side-to-side flexing motion, called squirming. Some snakes to move across sand use an exaggerated form of squirming, called side winding.

Which is the World's fastest snake?

Contrary to many people's beliefs, snakes actually move quite slowly: most snakes can't go faster than 7 km/hour. The African black mamba, which can move at upto 11 km/hour, is the world's fastest snake.

Why do snakes keep flicking out their tongue?

Snakes have restricted senses. Their eyes detect movement at close distances, but they can't see distant objects. Their ears lack external openings, and are mainly used to control balance and to sense ground vibrations.

Snakes use their tongues to lead them to prey

In the roof of its mouth the snake has an organ known as Jacobson's organ, which consists of two sacs with many nerve endings that are extremely sensitive to smell. When a snake flicks out its tongue, it picks up scent particles from the air, the ground and other surfaces. The twin prongs of the fork like tongue cary these back to their respective sacs, where it is sampled and identified. Along with its nostrils, the combined action of smelling and tasting enables the snake to follow prey and track down its mate.

Some snakes, such as boas and pythons, can track their prey, by sensing the creature's body heat.

In pit vipers and rattlesnakes, pit organs below the eyes and on each side of the head detect minor changes in temperature (as little as 0.2 °C). Even in the dark, these kinds of snakes can track and strike warm blooded prey accurately by flicking their tongue and moving their head from side to side to keep it on target.