The green anaconda (Eunectes murinus) is the largest snake in the world by weight and the second longest. On the kitchen table, a snake consumes a pig. shows the pterygoid walk of the snake’s jaws. At attachment points to the lower jaws, the quadrate bones at the back of the snake’s skull are not rigidly attached. They pivot, allowing vertical and horizontal rotation.
This allows the ingestion of large prey, such as this pig. This video focuses on the science of snake behavior to support a master’s thesis. The video is for citation in junior high and high school science reports. Super-sized meals such as this pig do not intimidate snakes. Unlike a mammalian jaw, which is built for brute chewing or biting force, as you can see in this video, a snake’s jaws are connected with tendons and ligaments that give it a gymnast’s flexibility. A snake’s lower jaw is not joined at the front by a rigid symphysis as mammal jaws are but by an elastic ligament that allows the two halves to spread apart, connected in front by an elastic ligament. Each half of the lower jaw moves independently.
The quadrate bones at the back of a snake’s skull at attachment points to the lower jaws are not rigidly attached. They pivot, allowing vertical and horizontal rotation. This allows the ingestion of large prey, such as this pig. Snakes’ jaws do not dislocate. One of the enduring myths of snake feeding mechanisms is that the jaws detach. They stay connected all the time. As seen in the video, the two lower jaws move independently of one another. The quadrate bone is not rigidly attached to the skull, but rather articulates with it at one end, allowing it to move freely. Video shows the “transport cycle” to get the pig into the python’s belly. Called a pterygoid walk, the python opens its jaw and alternately ratchets its upper jaw over the surface of the meal, in turn “walking” its mouth over and around the prey. Filmed in collaboration with the University of Guadalajara’s Department of Botany and Zoology and the Division of Biological and Agricultural Sciences.
