How do pythons catch large versions of their prey? (Not eat them, but catch them.) Do they have to find sick or near dead prey that could normally out run them, like dogs? Or do pythons always just look a bit slothlike on TV? Can they kill a sleeping animal before it wakes up with a bite? Just seems like it would take a bit of time for a big one of those to sneak up on you, and for it to get a coil or two around you. Or maybe that’s not how it’s done. Any pythons on-line to answer :dubious: ?
Many snakes are ambush artists…they can wait for weeks for a prey animal to venture within striking distance. With great senses to detect approaching warm blooded animals (smell and heat detection pits), the relative size of the meal makes this stealthy approach possible.
There are dozens of species of snakes in the Family Pythonidae– in fact there are 8 genera. They are ambush hunters, and some do have heat sensing organs although not all do. Being constrictors, they kill their prey by squeezing them around the chest and suffocating them or causing heart failure.
Rest assured that Colibri will be along shortly with the definitive answer. In the mentime.
Dogs don’t have to find sick or near dead animals. Dogs can kill perfectly healthy animals in the prime of their life. While dogs are no different from most other predators in that they preferentially take the weak because that is easiest, they are in no way obliged to do so. An individual dog is quite capable of taking down a healthy deer, kangaroo or sow, while a pack will kill a healthy moose or buffalo. There are few, if any, animals on this planet that can outrun a dog under standard conditions.
Pythons aren’t exactly sprinters. The fastest I’ve ever seen one move is about the equivalent of a fast walking pace/slow jog. However they aren’t slothlike either. I’ve been bitten by a small python that objected to being lifed out of the path of a mower and I can assure you that they can strike as fast as any venomous snake. However they are usually very tolerant creatures and once they realise that they aren’t being attacked tend to be more curious than aggressive and tolerate handling quite well.
As a side note pyhtons often look slothlike on TV because of the standard TV preparation technique. Snakes can move impressively fast in warm weather, far too fast to make good television. To cope with that problem TV producers carry an icebox with them. When a snake is caught it goes into the ice box for about 30 minutes (The process is quite harmless and painless for the animal AFAIK). When it comes out it is suitably sluggish and easy to film.
Having said that, it should be noted that pythons usually don’t move at high speeds. They spend large amounts of time in semi torpor digesting last weeks meal. When they are hunting they are like most other predators in that they tend to just poke around to see if they can pick up the scent of prey. Think of how a cat moves when it’s hunting. It mostly just ambles along until it seees somehting to stalk, and pythons are no different.
Not with a bite unless it is a very small animal. A python bite isn’t venomous or even painful, although it bleeds like nobody’s business for some reason. Pythons are constrictors, they suffocate their prey by throwing coils around them and not permitting them to darw bretah. Such an attack woudl defintitely wake they prey up, but it would be too late to do anything about it by then.
You should think of pythons as being like legless cats. Like cats they rely on stalking very close to their prey and then pouncing. It may seem odd to think of a snake pouncing, but they can lift most of their bodies off the ground and launch the front half. That means they can effectively ‘pounce’ half thier body length, meaning that a four metre snake only needs to get within 2 metres of its prey.
As far as throwing coils, the snake normally initiates the attack with a bite to the head. That anchors it to the prey and stops it from running away. The coils are then thrown over the animal using snake’s own head as a guide point. The whole process happens extremely quickly. It’s not as though the snake crawls over its prey and wraps it up. It’s more like wrestling, with someone being grabbed and then immediately wrapped up, and it happens about as fast as a well co-rdinated wrestling takedown.
As sunstone said, pythons are quite capable of lying in ambiush for prey for days or weeks at a time, however most species tend to be more active predators, tracking their prey by scent and then stalking to within striking distance.
The brain size (which coorolates well to the ability to sense danger) also has something to do with it as well.