How are animals like snakes/fish able to swallow and digest their prey without chewing?
In: Biology
Snakes basically have a hyper-advanced version of our own windpipes. They have both strong muscles and large ridges inside their throat that constrict in sync to force whatever they’re eating down their throat. And their stomachs, although very flexible, work in the same way ours do, albeit with stronger digestive juices. They just take their time. Snakes oftentimes take weeks to digest large meals. Anaconda have been known to go into torpor for months while waiting for a deer they just munched on to break down.
They can swallow prey like that due to the way their jaws and throat are designed, lacking a gag reflex entirely. They can digest whole foods because their stomachs are designed to handle it.
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