Constriction - Are BP's More Efficient or Just Lazy?

I have watched lots of snake feedings on TV and Youtube. And something I have noticed about BP's is that the use only what they need to kill the animal. Other constrictors that I have seen (mostly retics and boas) wrap every single coil they have around a prey item.

Has anyone else noticed this?

i have noticed with my bp that he wont wrap up smaller prey but if its a bigger one he will wrap all the way around it. not sure about other snakes though.

When I feed my large male corn snake it's like a WWF Cage Match!!! There's just snake everywhere, tumbling and thrashing and using every inch of his body to kill the prey. Not at all like a BP.

My thoughts on this are that a bp has to worry about a rodent prey's defenses. In this case the only form of real danger are the rodents teeth; striking the head and constricting the chest is more than enough to incapacitate its prey.

When you start talking about larger snakes you also start talking about larger and more dangerous prey. Utilizing every coil when it comes to larger prey could mean the difference between eating or not eating, and perhaps life and death.

I think its a matter of evolution, why waste energy on constriction when you don't have too.

I wonder if it's a function of how they live and hunt in the tight quarters of rodent burrows. There wouldn't be a whole lot of room to toss coils around in there maybe?

I'd say it's a combo of being more efficient and not as excitable. My BPs will wrap more coils if they are very excited at the time. but usually they just do as much as needed.

I've even had one "lose" the prey when she wrapped a lot.
The rat was under the biggest part of her body and she couldn't find it! :rolleyes: After about 10 mins of searching, she settled down, waiting for another rat. When it was under her the whole time with just it's butt and tail sticking out!!!!

I had to pull it out for her. Then she's like "oh, there it is" and goes right to swallowing. :rofl:

:cool: silly girl!

i had one try to eat it with out constriction! that was interesting and that one has never had frozen either

Mine only throws one coil but it gets to job done.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

I wonder if it's a function of how they live and hunt in the tight quarters of rodent burrows. There wouldn't be a whole lot of room to toss coils around in there maybe?

---

I tend to agree with you on this, Joanna. Milton has actually just pinned his rat to the wall on a couple of occasions. That would work great if you were in a tiny little rat burrow!

I never really thought about it, but now I'm convinced that BPs are the smartest hunters... except for that whole which-end-is-the-head thing that some do... ;)

From what I've seen with my colubrids, it depends on how big the prey item is. I once fed a larger than normal mouse to one my variable kingsnakes..and she wrapped up the whole thing even though it was f/t. It took her quite a while to get it down though.

My pythons never seem to wrap more than a coil or two.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

I wonder if it's a function of how they live and hunt in the tight quarters of rodent burrows. There wouldn't be a whole lot of room to toss coils around in there maybe?

---

i'd say that has a lot to do with it. possibly because they have such thick bodies, the may not need as many coils to generate the same amount of force as other species.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gmcclurelssu

i'd say that has a lot to do with it. possibly because they have such thick bodies, the may not need as many coils to generate the same amount of force as other species.

---

I think that's the case, in combination with their natural hunting grounds being small burrows. My pastel male when I first got him used to use every single inch of his body to constrict his little mice every time he got them (might have also been my very enthusiastic "zombie mouse dance" too) but has been slowly growing out of it. He's been reducing his constriction by a coil or two every few months and is now like my adults, wrapping once or twice and that's it...I think he was building up the strength to be able to do so.

And if you ever happen to give an older snake a bigger prey item than they're used to, they'll wrap a LOT more than usual, even if it's a size they'd have no problem constricting normally; so it might also be psychological. A sort of, "Oh look, there's the same teeny mouse I get every week, I'll just loop once and wait a minute and ahah, there we go..! Nummers!" versus "ZOMG IT LOOKS BIG, I GOTTA WRAP LOTS! LOTS OF WRAP CONSTRICTCONSTRICTCONSTRICT!!! DDDD8"

...Or maybe that's just my interpretation. XD

A long time ago I fed one of my carpet pythons a smaller item than normal. Instead of wrapping or even a hard strike he just opened up and started swallowing it off the tongs. It was weird, I almost felt like I was doing an assisted feed.