Counter-defense technique to mitigate prey toxicity in raccoons (Procyon lotor)

Mochida, Koji; Matsui, Kumi

doi:10.3106/1348-6160(2007)32[135:cttmpt]2.0.co;2

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Animals often dismember their foods before consuming them, which enables them to eat food items that are larger than their gape size (Helfman & Clark, 1986;Rey & Gutiérrez, 1996), circumvent toxic parts (Olson, 1989;Fellers, Reynolds-Taylor & Farrar, 2007;Mochida & Matsui, 2007) or remove indigestible parts of their food (Smith & Follmer, 1972;Hines & Pearse, 1982). In contrast, snakes are an example of animals highly adapted to swallow prey whole [e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A blindsnake that decapitates its termite prey

Mizuno

Kojima

2015

Journal of Zoology

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Almost all snakes swallow their prey whole. However, a few species are known as exceptions. Two species of Asian crab‐eating snakes tear off crab legs and ingest them one at a time to eat prey that is otherwise too large. Two species of leptotyphlopid blindsnakes break off the head of termites or suck abdominal contents of termites, discarding remains of termites. Here, we show that a typhlopid blindsnake Indotyphlops braminus decapitates its termite prey and consumes only the thorax and abdomen. In our feeding trials, I. braminus decapitated a median of 47% of termites they eat, while swallowing the remaining termites whole. Decapitation did not affect ingestion speed, and therefore, it is unlikely that decapitation assists for fast ingestion. Ingested termite heads often remain undigested in the feces, implying that the decapitation functions to remove an indigestible part of termites. Decapitation might also be related to circumvention of chemical defenses of termites because termite heads often contain toxic compounds. These observations showed unusual feeding behavior used by a basal snake, which could be associated with removal of indigestible and/or toxic parts of prey items.

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