You see videos of reptiles eat huge cockroaches, birds swallow fish in one gulp, whales take down schools of living fish… How do these live creatures not cause discomfort to those that eat them? A frog eating a big horned beetle in a gulp, you can see the insect still moving and writhing as it’s consumed; a pelican downing a fish the length of it’s neck, a whale gulping down a small school of fish. Do these animals just cruise around in their captors’ stomachs until they’re digested enough to die? I saw that video the other day of the komodo dragon eating the whole goat where you can hear it still bleating from it’s fleshy cage. Doesn’t all this movement physically bother the consumer?
In: Biology
One or more of the following are usually true:
* The predator’s digestive system is usually evolved to handle the prey it normally eats
* The predator’s digestive system is able to constrict the prey enough that it’s not able to move and cause problems
* With no oxygen the prey usually loses consciousness pretty quickly
* In situations where the prey live for a while after being eaten, they’re usually too dumb to know they’ve been eaten and just know they’re somewhere dark
However, there are absolutely situations where eaten prey has fought it’s way out of the stomach of its captor, so the above reasons aren’t always perfect.
Ever watch the movie “*Nope*”?
If so, just imagine the live show scene, but with animals.
Latest Answers