The pitons of the Burmese rocks swallow the whole prey. In their digestive system, cells were found able to dissolve a skeleton.
Birds, rats, amphibians, flying foxes, even antelopes, goats, deer and jackals: their skeletons They enter whole in the piton jaws of Burmese rocks And they leave no fragments in the stool. They are therefore completely dissolved in the digestive system of the snakes: but how is it possible?
Cells specialized in the digestion of bones They have been identified in the intestine of Burmese pitons, and could also be present in those of other predators – reptiles, mammals and birds – known to swallow their prey without chewing them, complete with bones. The discovery of scientists from the University of Montpellier (France) was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology in progress in Antwerp (Belgium).
Chopped cells
The python of the Burmese rocks (Python Bivittatus), which has an average length of 5 meters, is known to swallow entire prey even very large and to alternate between a meal and the other long periods of fasting, which can last one or two months. So far, however, the cellular mechanisms that allow the pitons to digest the skeleton of its victims were unknown.
The authors of the study analyzed with optical and electronic microscopy the cells that cover the intestine of the Burmese bitons (entities), as well as measuring the levels of calcium and hormones in the blood of the snakes. The study revealed, inside the piton intestine, The presence of specialized cells, so far unknown, different from traditional enterocytes which have a generic absorption function.
The new cells are very narrow and with short -sighted microvilli). In the upper part they have a fold that forms a kind of crypt: a cavity in which, when pitons eat bones, Large football, phosphorus and iron particles accumulate.
A little at a time
The scientists analyzed the intestinal cells of pitons who had followed diets of three different types: based on whole rodents, based on “boned prey” and therefore poor in football, or finally based on dissatisfied rodents but rich in football integrated through injections. In the first and last case, that is When the introduced football aboundedcell crypts were filled with football, phosphorus and iron particles. On the other hand, when the pythons ate boned prey, a diet that normally caused their football deficiencies, these particles were not produced.
Cellular crypts could be a means of absorbing calcium and other important substances from the bones and at the same time for limit sudden absorption and total Of these substances in the body: a whole skeleton to be digestive could in fact cause excessive absorption.
Also in other animals
The new type of cell has also been found in other species of pitons and buoy as well as in the monster of Gila (Heloderma Suspectum Cope), a poisonous lizard that feeds on small vertebrates widespread in Southwest of North America. Other animals that feed on bones – such as certain marine predators or birds of prey and brushes – could have the same type of intestinal coating.
