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They swallow it whole, by unhooking their jaws. A number of factors help snake swallow their prey whole. First the skin of the snake is so elastic that, it can stretch around a large prey item.The two halves of the lower jaw are joint at the front end by a ligament not rigidly fused and can spread.Also the two halves of both lower & upper jaw can move independently.The articulation between the skull,maxilla & mandibular joints are all loosely connected & could widen apart while swallowing a prey providing ample space to accomodate prey body. Amazingly a snake can stretch its both jaw more than 180 degrees,enabling it a bigger grasp. All these adaptations makes a snake perfect for swallowing whole its prey even bigger than its size.

= to make it simple the snakes jaw can unhinge to 3 parts which allows it to swallow it's prey that is up to 5 times the size of it's head.

it starts swallowing it's prey head first so the limbs of it's prey won't block in their mouth and using muscular contractions to push their prey down to the stomach.

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16y ago

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