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What is a snake’s natural diet, and how does it get its food?



As most people know, snakes are carnivores in nature. This means that they feed on meat. The diet of a snake includes smaller snakes, birds, small mammals, fish and even amphibians. However, there is a snake called the egg eating Michigan snake that doesn’t have the above in its main diet. As the name of the snake implies, the snake feeds mainly on eggs. Snakes have a very rare ability of unhinging their jaws so as to be able to swallow their prey while they are still whole. Snakes have teeth, but they don’t use them for chewing.

Habitat

A snake’s habitat mainly determines the kind of diet that it will go for. What a snake eats depends very greatly on its environment. Sea snakes, for instance, will mainly feed on fish because of the location that they are found in. As for tree pythons, they feed mainly on birds due to the fact that their dwelling place is high in the trees.

For blind snakes, their main diet includes ants and termites because they live near such insects. There are also powerful snakes such as king cobras which are able to subdue and even prey on other snakes. They may be able to handle bigger prey than other types of snakes.

Getting food

Snakes are very efficient as predators and that is how they have been able to develop some very specific senses so as to be able to hunt their prey. Most of the snakes may have all the senses.

Snakes also utilize vibrations to find food. Snakes may not hear sounds like we do, but they can catch some vibrations and they are able to interpret them. They can easily locate the specific location of prey.

Heat vision is yet another adaptation used to locate prey. There is a thermal seeking sense that is very sensitive to the heat signatures of different animals. Such snakes don’t require using their eyes to see when in the dark; heat vision can be used to attack their prey.

Chemical and movement detection are yet other ways in which a snake can be able to get its food.

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