A US study found that the boa constrictor kills its victims not interrupting breathing the past, but by cutting off their blood flow. A much faster and more efficient process than asphyxiation.
The boa does not kill its prey by suffocating them but by cutting off their blood flow. This is the astonishing conclusion of a study by a group of American researchers from Dickinson College in Carlisle (Pennsylvania, USA), published Wednesday in the Journal of the Experimental Biology. Contrary to popular belief, the boa constrictor – a species of snake in the family Boidae – surrounds the neck of its prey not to stifle it, but to cut the bloodstream of its organs. Tighten the victim and reduces blood pressure, eventually leading to death.
The study, conducted on rats delivered to constrictor boas and equipped with sensors within their blood pressure and heart activity, showed that rodents had died after a cardiac arrest. “At the end of the constriction, 91% of the rats showed signs of cardiac dysfunction,” says the research team. Boa, blocking blood flow, prevents supply of blood and therefore oxygen to vital organs, which then cease to function very quickly.
The researchers’ suspicions were aroused by the speed at which the rats die. They succumbed actually much too quickly for them to have been suffocated. The prey loses consciousness in seconds, blood pressure rodents halved in six seconds and one minute, the boa has caused severe bradycardia, heart rate too low compared to normal. Scientists have shown that this technique is much more efficient, rapid and definitive to cause death as strangulation. But that sensitive souls can rest assured, the boa constrictor is not a predator for man.
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