Snake With A Desire For Yolks

Common Egg-Eating Snake - Daypeltis scabra

Our journey today takes us once more to Africa. Every once in awhile, I come across an animal that has been created or has evolved to feed on just one food source. There are many such animals in nature. For this trip though we are going to focus on a reptile. Well, I guess you could have guessed that from the title. Which is okay, It's been awhile since I've done one of these. Hope this one is a good one!

The common egg eating snake measures 28 to 34 inches long. It one of five to six species of egg eating snake in the world. The snake is perfectly fitted for eating eggs.

Some books claim that this snake and it's relatives have no teeth, others claim that this snake has very fine teeth. There skull is very flexible which helps to swallow the egg. The mouth and throat are also very flexible. Again this helps to not only get the egg into the mouth but also to aide in getting the egg down to the stomach. Projections on the backbones saw through the egg shell. Once the yolk and whites have been swallowed, the shell is simply ejected. Pretty clever little feeder! It also has one trick up it's sleeve. This snake can test to see if an egg is bad by using it's tongue. It also has one other survival tool. It mimics the coloration and scale patterns of the saw scaled viper. The egg eating snake feeds heavily during the breeding season for birds. After the egg laying season, the snake will fast till breeding season comes again.

Join me again next time for another animal. Remember, the more you know about the world around you, the more you can share it and enjoy it.

 http://www.centralpets.com/animals/reptiles/snakes/snk2887.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasypeltis

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/87916/snake_eating_an_egg/

http://www.exotic-pets.co.uk/egg-eating-snake.html

Enjoy