All snakes are predators and therefore never eat vegetable food, so snakes are carnivores . Snakes do not have powerful teeth, and they can not, like cats, chew food. Birds and turtles have sharp beaks for this purpose. And the only thing that snakes can boast of is thin, needle-like teeth that help an animal to just grab prey and drag it into his mouth.
The jaws of the snake have an unusual structure. They are very weakly connected to other skull bones. On the edge of the jaws grow tiny teeth, and some snakes still on the palate grow two additional rows of teeth. All these teeth are connected with bones, which are set in motion by special muscles.
Taking the prey, the snake holds it with the teeth of the lower jaw, and the upper pushes it into the mouth opening. When the food has already half penetrated into the mouth, then the lower jaw also begins to help the upper to push food deeper into the esophagus.
Due to the special structure of the jaw, the snake can swallow large animals. For example, pythons sometimes swallow leopards and deer! But, of course, small animals eat small animals. Most snakes still eat medium-sized living creatures: grasshoppers, frogs, fish, mice, rats and birds. Some tiny blind snakes eat only termites. And still there are snakes that hunt their own kind.
