![]() And back pressure keeps the rat heart from pumping out new blood. Blood that should surge through the artery will now lie dammed behind snake coils in the rat’s upper body. Within six seconds of looping around a rat, a boa constrictor squeezes enough to cut the blood pressure in a rear-leg artery in half. “You can kind of feel the blood stop.”īoback and his colleagues have studied boas’ deadly grip in the laboratory. His arms get snaked by a boa now and then. “It’s not some unbelievable amount of pressure,” says Boback. Then it presses hard enough to starve organs of oxygen-rich blood. The snake cinches a loop or two around its victim’s upper body. It launches its attacks in much the same way each time. This snake ambushes birds, monkeys and a wide range of other animals. It’s home range spans from Mexico south to Argentina in South America. Embracing a creature into heart failure is faster than suffocating it, Boback points out. Keep in mind that their prey can fight with claws, hooves or other weapons that the snake lacks. The question of how boa constrictors kill their prey is one example.įor their hunting to succeed, the speed at which these snakes kill really matters. “Imagine,” he says, “you’re killing and swallowing a 68-kilogram animal in one meal - with no hands or legs!” As an animal ecologist, Boback studies how different creatures relate to each other. They don’t need limbs, or even venom, to bring down an animal their own size. Scott Boback emphasizes to his students at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., that these snakes are extraordinary hunters. This means that the idea boa constrictors slay by preventing their prey from breathing is just plain wrong. Without blood delivering fresh oxygen, the heart, and brain starve. They squeeze down blood circulation until it stops. A new study finds that these snakes kill like demon blood-pressure cuffs. Boa constrictors don’t suffocate their prey so much as break their hearts.
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