I watched an infamous video of a snake engulfing a whole egg. It didn’t bite it down or anything, it just extended its mouth like an elastic band. You can see the egg travel down the snake. How does this process not hurt it?
In: 10
Contrary to popular belief, snakes do not dislocate their jaws.
Snake skulls are not a single mass of bone, but rather many bones connected with elastic ligaments. Allowing their skull parts to move independently.
The bottom jaws are not connected in the front like ours (snakes have no chins, so no folding towels for them), in place of a bony chin, they have one of the aforementioned ligaments. This allowed them to stretch their mouth over very large prey.
Their bodies are similarly stretchy, and the ribs can expand to hold a big meal.
Tl;dr: Snake skeletons are made of lots of little pieces connected with stretchy ligaments.
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