Hi, so I just saw a video of a little bird eating a bee. And it made wonder: How does the bee being at least a bit alive (and angry!) while swallowing not hurt the birds when eating? I feel the same way about other animals who tend to swallow their prey whole e.g. predatory fish, owl who swallow mice and so on. I imagine it would hurt a lot to have an angry animal thrashing with all their might from within. 🙁
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Lots do! Animals frequently die from trying to eat something they shouldn’t have.
I’ve had pet lizards and you never want to feed them anything bigger than the space between their eyes, otherwise they might not be able to pass it through their digestive system and could die.
Sometimes a fish eats another fish that’s covered in spines and they both die.
Sometimes a snake is hurt or even killed by its intended prey before eating it, sometimes they die choking on it.
Nature isn’t perfect and lots of predators die hunting, it’s high risk behavior. But as long as enough of the hunters are successful enough to breed, it doesn’t matter. The species will go on. And if the ones who survive have traits that helped, like a thick stomach lining, that could be passed down to their kids, making them better hunters.
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