Biologists Have Discovered How Burmese Pythons Grow and Evolve

Biologists have discovered that a Burmese python's appetite is not solely driven by the size of its own head and body.

They developed extremely elastic skin around their lower jaws, which enables them to eat prey that is as much as six times bigger than snakes of comparable size.

Pythons are skilled chokers

(Photo : CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Since most snakes consume their prey whole, their mouths must be large to fit a meal. Snakes' lower jawbones are not connected like ours is, which allows them to expand wide, as per Sciencedaily.

In pythons, the flexible skin between the lower jaws on the left and right is very different. According to lead author and UC biology professor Bruce Jayne, stretchable skin makes up about 40% of the average person's overall gape area. Their gape is wide even after your account for their big heads.

Pythons suffocate. They bite their prey and around it with their strong coils, severing the life-giving blood supply, then devouring the animal whole at their leisure.

Jayne an arboreal specialist, researched the gape size of brown tree snakes, with moderate venom that hunts birds and other animals in the forest canopy, in addition to pythons. Many bird species were wiped out in Guam after brown tree snakes were introduced there in the 1950s.

Burmese pythons are destroying the ecology of Everglades National Park, where they were introduced as a result of the release of captive animals from the exotic pet trade in the 1980s, just like invasive brown tree snakes did in Guam.

Study co-author Ian Bartoszek works as an environmental science project manager for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, where he has managed a project to track pythons. To locate female snakes before they may deposit additional clutches of eggs, male snakes are implanted with radio transmitters during the breeding season.

The good news is that pythons infrequently attack people. Bartoszek claimed that only female wild pythons defending their nests have provoked defensive encounters in him.

Read More: Florida Holds Annual Invasive Snake Hunt to Remove Burmese Python from Local Ecosystem

Escaping from a serious Python bite and attack

Pythons are typically represented as terrifying creatures in movies. They could murder and consume an entire human.

Pythons can suffocate a person to death by wrapping themselves securely around their neck, as per Survival Junkies.

The simplest solution to this is to avoid being assaulted in the first place. Keep in mind that a python might be hiding in the water or a bush waiting to ambush you whenever you're in the Everglades or any other warm, humid region in the Americas, Asia, Africa, or Australia.

Fortunately, pythons are not poisonous, so even if one bites you, the situation is not hopeless. There is still time to flee before they start to close.

Be prepared for strong pressure from the snake if you are unable to flee after being bitten. It talks about the pressure that breaks bones.

You will practically be squeezed to death by it. It will start to encircle you, but before it does, raise your arms to shield your neck.

You should make a call for assistance while allowing yourself to breathe by wrapping your arms around your neck. The best chance of surviving after the constriction starts is with help here.

if you ever come across a python in a circumstance. The next best course of action is to protect your neck long enough to endure the compression and make a rescue call.

Related Article: Florida's Largest Burmese Python at 18 Feet, 200 Pounds Discovered in the Everglades