Pythons are remarkable at swallowing large food.

One of the heaviest snakes in the world.

Health insurance is available for exotic pets for health or injury, as per end of video. Shop around. Make sure to take care of your reptile companions.

Video taken on June 26, 2017 of an African Rock Python (Python sebae) eating a pig.

This video focuses on the science of reptile behavior that supported a master's thesis in zoology. Video is made public for the citation for junior high school, and high school science reports. Also recommended for college and graduate level source citation for zoological biostatistics.

Two points of this video: One, as seen in video, a snake's lower jaw is not joined at the front by a rigid symphysis as mammal jaws are, but by an elastic ligament that allows the two halves to spread apart, connected in front by an elastic ligament. Each half of lower jaw moves independently. Quadrate bones at the back of snake's skulls at attachment points to lower jaws, are not rigidly attached. They pivot allowing vertical and horizontal rotation. This allows ingestion of prey such as this feeder pig.

Two, the two lower jaws move independently of one another. The quadrate bone is not rigidly attached to the skull, but articulates with the skull at one end and is therefore free moving. Jaws of snakes do not dislocate. One of the enduring myths of snake feeding mechanisms is that the jaws detach. They stay connected all the time.

Close up shot. Video shows the “transport cycle” to get the pig into the python's throat. Called a pterygoid walk, the snake opens its jaw and alternately ratchets its upper jaw with its two rows of teeth over the bird, in turn “walking” its mouth across it.

Filmed with the University of Guadalajara for Biological and Agricultural Sciences, the division of Biological and Environmental Science Division, at the department of Botany and Zoology.

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