Animals That Can Eat Living Things In One Bite
Snakes Anyone who has seen National Geographic has probably seen a snake swallowing something massive. It's possible because snakes don't have jaws, right? Wrong! Snakes don't even have jaws that can dislocate; they have ligaments that can stretch to a pretty decent capacity. What's truly remarkable is what allows a snake to actually digest whole prey.
Crocodiles Though pythons have swallowed crocodiles and alligators, crocs have similar biological mechanisms in place to swallow and digest whole prey. Crocodiles have something that snakes don't to help them gobble up their prey in one fell swoop: gizzard stones. Crocs have gizzard stones in their stomachs to help digest things that are not easily digestible, like bones. This is just part of why they can swallow prey that's up to 23% of their body mass.
Frogs Frogs can eat snakes. An Australian tree frog was caught on camera swallowing a snake whole. Though frogs aren't eating prey that's massively bigger than them, like the olive python, they still swallow their prey whole. It's not uncommon for a larger frog to eat a mouse whole, for example. Some bullfrogs have also eaten other frogs.
Owls Owls will kill basically whatever - rabbits, fish, pretty much any small mammal. Owls can't chew, so the prey goes down the hatch whole. Owls don't have a crop, which is a small sac in the beak that some birds have to store food for later - so they swallow every bit of mouse, insect, or whatever is on the menu that evening.
Monkfish This handsome fellow eats live birds whole. Let that one sink in for a minute. This bottom-dwelling fish eats birds whole.How? When seabirds dive down to fish, the monkfish swoops in.
Great Blue Herons Great blue herons are all over North America, so chances are, you've seen one out in the wild. They look like less cool flamingos, standing peacefully in the water on their skinny legs. Peaceful they are not, however. The great blue heron also swallows its prey whole.
Whales Can you imagine being so big that all you have to do to eat is open your mouth and wait for food to simply go into it? That is what blue whales do with krill. This type of eating is known as filter feeding. They swim towards large schools of helpless krill and swallow 'em up along with the water. The whale then pushes the water out of their mouth with their tongue, keeping the krill trapped on their bristley tongues.
Pelicans For a while, everyone assumed that pelicans were swallowing fish whole and that was about it. Made sense. However, a pelican was observed eating a pigeon, and science had to re-evaluate. Pelicans do eat birds, filling their bills with water to drown their prey and then swallow it. Nigel the pelican in Finding Nemo is not quite accurately represented. They are not sweet like Nigel, but rather straight-up blood-thirsty killers.
Turtles Turtles, like many predators on this list, don't have teeth. Some have beaks, while others have lips. The ones with beaks can exert tons of pressure to snap their prey into nice bite-sized pieces. The ones with lips, like soft-shelled turtles, simply swallow their prey by sucking it down. No crazy enzymes or muscles to crush prey here!
Wobbegong Sharks Sharks aren't the terrifying killers you probably think they are (a 100-pound shark eats about three pounds of fish per day), mainly because they have slow metabolisms. The wobbegong was spotted along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia inhaling another shark by swallowing wholly.