In between all of the fuzzy animals doing adorable things, like goats riding on ponies and hippos befriending tortoises, the animal kingdom is downright ruthless. While Fiona the premature hippo is out being cute as can be, there are animals who wholly devour their prey in one bite. Yes, that's right, animals eating their victims in one big nasty gulp.
Snakes are the OG of swallowing their prey whole (Kaa from the Jungle Book, anyone?), but there are plenty of other surprising animals that can eat things in one bite. It's probably a good idea not to be eating yourself while learning about these quick eaters.
Anyone who has seen National Geographic has probably seen a snake swallowing something massive. It's possible because snakes don't have jaws, right? Wrong! Snakes don't even have jaws that can dislocate; they have ligaments that can stretch to a pretty decent capacity.
What's truly remarkable is what allows a snake to actually digest whole prey. A group of scientists took X-rays and did some testing while a Burmese python swallowed and digested an alligator. When a snake begins to feed, it kicks off a series of biological reactions: increased heart rate, increased metabolism, increased enzyme activity, and the stomach pH drops. The researchers found that within a week, the alligator had been completely digested.
Though pythons have swallowed crocodiles and alligators, crocs have similar biological mechanisms in place to swallow and digest whole prey. Crocodiles have something that snakes don't to help them gobble up their prey in one fell swoop: gizzard stones. Crocs have gizzard stones in their stomachs to help digest things that are not easily digestible, like bones. This is just part of why they can swallow prey that's up to 23% of their body mass.
Because crocs can eat so much in one meal, they're able to go long periods of time without eating if they must. It's likely that that attribute contributed to the longevity of crocs - they've been around for 80 million years.
No, seriously. Frogs can eat snakes. An Australian tree frog was caught on camera swallowing a snake whole (yes, this is as amazing as it sounds).
Though frogs aren't eating prey that's massively bigger than them, like the olive python, they still swallow their prey whole. It's not uncommon for a larger frog to eat a mouse whole, for example. Some bullfrogs have also eaten other frogs. No one is safe from that guy.
So, how can frogs do this? It makes sense that a snake has muscles to crush and push down prey. But frogs clearly don't have that capability. They are, however, pushing down food -with their eyes. When swallowing, its eyes retract downward towards the esophagus, effectively pushing down prey.
Get rid of any pop culture reference to owls that you can think of right now. Owl in Winnie the Pooh? Gone. Hedwig in Harry Potter? Gone. The owl who eats Tootsie Pops? Gone. The Hooters Owl? Get rid of that guy, too.
Owls will kill basically whatever - rabbits, fish, pretty much any small mammal. Owls can't chew, so the prey goes down the hatch whole. Owls don't have a crop, which is a small sac in the beak that some birds have to store food for later - so they swallow every bit of mouse, insect, or whatever is on the menu that evening.
Or, just watch this video of an owl swallowing a rabbit. Long story short, you don't want to mess with owls.
This handsome fellow eats live birds whole. Let that one sink in for a minute. This bottom-dwelling fish eats birds whole.
How? When seabirds dive down to fish, the monkfish swoops in. Done. If a seabird is not on the menu, the monkfish will wait under the sand until some unfortunate smaller fish swims by and is lured in with the esca, or little filament-like strings, that sprout from between the monkfish's eyes. Once the prey is in place, the monkfish strikes and swallows his meal whole.
Great blue herons are all over North America, so chances are, you've seen one out in the wild. They look like less cool flamingos, standing peacefully in the water on their skinny legs. Peaceful they are not, however. The great blue heron also swallows its prey whole.
The heron eats fish and other water creatures, and that makes perfect sense. But land creatures are in danger, too. A great blue heron was filmed in someone's yard eating a baby gopher. The heron picks it up and then eventually chokes it down whole. They are not picky eaters, either. They will eat anything from shrimp to frogs to small rodents to your very expensive koi in your backyard pond.
