“Why keep things up and running when you don’t use them?” But how snakes managed this feat was harder for Secor to explain. “Running all this stuff is a tremendous waste of energy,” he said. In the meantime, her gut will shrink, her stomach will turn watery again and her other organs will return to their previous size.įrom an evolutionary point of view, Secor could see how this drastic reversal made sense. Everything else will be coursing through her body, much of it destined to end up as long strips of fat. Its liver and kidney double in weight, and its heart increases 40 per cent.īy the time the rat in Haydee’s esophagus makes it to the end of her large intestines, all that remains is a packet of hair. Secor and his colleagues have found that the rest of a snake’s body responds in a similarly impressive fashion. Once all that food is circulating through the snake’s bloodstream, its other organs have to cope with it. Within hours of swallowing an animal, Secor found, a snake produces a torrent of acid that will remain in its stomach for days, breaking down the snake’s prey. But when a python is fasting, its stomach contains no acid at all. We add some acid to our stomach a few times a day to handle our regular meals. Secor has spent years investigating what the snakes are doing with all that extra fuel. But whereas a horse may gallop for a couple of minutes in the Kentucky Derby, a python can keep its metabolic rate at its extreme elevation for two weeks. In those cases, their metabolic rate can soar by 4,400 per cent, the highest ever recorded for an animal.įor comparison, a horse in full gallop increases its metabolic rate by about 3,500 per cent. But pythons can eat their whole body weight if Secor has enough rats on hand.
If a python eats a quarter of its body weight, its metabolic rate jumps 1,000 per cent. Secor switched to pythons and found that they reached even greater extremes. Everything else will be coursing through her body
By the time the rat in Haydee’s esophagus makes it to the end of her large intestines, all that remains is a packet of hair.
0 kommentar(er)
