I’ve seen a lot of videos of frogs (mostly large sized ones) swallowing all sorts of prey, and they seem impervious to anything. Scorpions, spiders, centipedes, preying mantises, wasps etc., they seem completely unfazed by stingers, jaws, fangs or anything else.
Thing is that the way these frogs kills their prey seems to be virtually all about digestion and suffocation, which take time. It’s not like they shred them with their teeth or anything like that. The prey are clearly alive and moving for a considerable period of time. (I’ve seen a video where a frog actually vomited up a bombadier beetle after 88 minutes, and the beetle walked away unscathed, but perhaps such beetles can survive longer than other prey.)
So the question is: I would think while the prey are struggling in the frog’s mouth, that they would be biting, scratching, stabbing, stinging away as much as they can. Why wouldn’t this injure the frog’s internal organs?
I found this interesting article about it but I can’t vouch for the accuracy of it. However there are some great examples in here which sound plausible enough:
Once in the stomach, while the most obvious cause of death for animals swallowed alive would be the powerful stomach acid of a predator, it’s generally unlikely that this is going to cause the death, at least not in the flesh melting way occasionally mentioned in Hollywood. Rather, thanks to sphincters—everyone’s favorite variety of muscle—the interior of a stomach is largely bereft of breathable air. Thus, such an environment would likely cause an air-breathing animal to pass out and die relatively quickly.
…some snails, …have been known to make the long and undignified journey through an animal’s entire digestive tract and come out, Shawshank Redpmetion-style, on the other end.
For example, the Tornatellides boeningi snail of Japan’s Hahajima Island are known to have a small chance of surviving an entire trip through a bird’s digestive system after being eaten. We like to imagine this process leaves the snail’s shell with a shiny new buff job, though it probably never smells quite the same.
…in 2012, biologists in East Timor observed a strange, wormlike species of snake, known as a blind snake, emerging from the rear end of a toad.
The snake eel has a barbed tail which it uses to burrow in the sand. However, when eaten by fish, it has been observed to use this tail to attempt to bore through the stomach of the animal that ate it. However, as far as researchers can tell, these attempts always end up being in vain as the eel inevitably finds itself trapped in the space between the stomach and abdominal wall, where it often suffocates, though does at least get a little revenge on its killer.
I want to copy more because there are a lot of interesting paragraphs but I fear I’ll get a warning for quoting too much of it.
IANAFB, but some frogs expel their stomachs (the whole organ, not just the contents) when they vomit. Their stomachs have got to be tougher than they look to endure that.
I am not in a position to find links, so I hope someone else can oblige with the sauces…
…but I’ve read a lot of “animals relaxing when they are swallowed” is due to the swaddling affect or the womb effect. This was more in regards to snakes and pelicans and ducks and other birds that scarf down whole live animals.
There also exists a plethora of images of animals who tried to swallow something whole but it didn’t go well and both died. Sorry again I’m just not in a position to dig up links.
Florida has a problem with boa constrictors and such that have been released into the wild and thrive as invasive species. The state sponsors hunts where in it rewards people for killing these snakes. Occasionally, a very large snake will swallow alive a smallish gator. The gator is often successful in tearing its way out.
When I worked in a pet store I learned quite a lot about keeping sneks and one thing I learned is that it’s important to match the size, age and species of mouse/rat to the snek because if you feed a too large, too agile critter and the snek tries it you might end up with a damaged or dead (and very expensive) snek from trying to feed it too large of a cheap feeder rodent. This is why pinkies (very young mice and rats who haven’t grown fur yet) are preferred pet snek food. They can’t fight back.
So there have been some examples of how occasionally the swallower does get injured, but still it appears that the vast majority of the time injury is avoided. I think this happens for a few different reasons:
When you get swallowed you don’t have nearly the freedom of movement you normally do; it’s like being partially vacuum sealed in a wet rubber hammock. Put a pillow case over you head and then try to bite it. Pretty hard unless you can use your hand to stuff a bit into your mouth; which you can’t do when your arms are pinned to your sides.
Also, if you’re swallowed head first (which seems to be a predator’s preferred method) then you are also in the dark and unable to breath. It doesn’t take long for either panic or lack of air to render you pretty still. You’ll probably be using all your energy to try to get a breath or awkwardly squirm back out rather than attacking a wall of muscle blindly while holding your breath. And for things like insects, it seems to only take a few seconds for them to asphyxiate. Just spray them with soapy water and see how fast they stop moving when they can’t breath.
Lastly, some prey animals simply aren’t built to fight when wrapped up like a sausage. I watched the pelican eating a pigeon video linked to in the above duck video. The pelican took several minutes to get the pigeon into position to swallow. While able to move around in it’s mouth all the pigeon knew how to do was flap it’s wings and squirm. They aren’t natural wrestlers or chewers. Birds tend to need space and mobility to attack or fight. Other animals that naturally grab scratch and bite in close would have a better chance.
In general, I’d say getting swallowed by another animal big enough to fit your whole body in it’s mouth/throat is kind of like getting jumped and dog piled by 10 people with a plastic bag wrapped over your face. If you happen to have your hands or mouth positioned in a lucky way you could pinch or scratch or bite a bit, but it wouldn’t be enough to overcome the force confining you. And most of the time you won’t even be able to try.
I saw an X-Ray image of a bird (crane, egret?) that had swallowed a baby badger. The badger was able to ‘dig’ most of the way out, towards the shoulder, before it suffocated. The bird also died.
If I were any animal bigger than a fly, I would avoid badgers. Total a-holes.
This story went viral a while back. This is what can happen when a python tries to swallow an alligator that’s a bit more than it could suffocate and swallow whole.
Considering they were the most expensive critters in the store, definitely NOT! I also learned how to force feed them eggs when they got cranky and refused their pinkies. I also learned to stick my hand into a big box of crickets to count them out for sale or for feeding the leezards (anoles are hilarious, they’re fast AF and they really love their cricket dinners) which got me over a lot of my squeamishness over bugs. I couldn’t ever bring myself to get anywhere near the tarantulas or emperor scorpions though, those were just a big goddamned nope for me. I’ll wear a snek for a necklace though, no problem.
