Pythons can devour bones thanks to unique stomach cells
Few predators swallow their prey whole. Even fewer can digest their meals with bones and all. But for some reptiles like the Burmese python (Python bivittatus), calcium-rich skeletons aren’t a digestive concern—they’re a necessity. Herpetologists have spent years trying to understand how bones are not only safe and healthy for the serpents, but how their biology manages to regulate when and how many bones to digest. Now, researchers believe they have identified an explanation hidden inside the “crypts” of specialized cells. Their findings are published this week in the Journal of Experimental Biology. A team co-led by zoologist Jehan-Hervé Lignot at France’s University of Montpellier began peering inside Burmese python intestines using light and electron microscopy in an effort to better understand their dietary cycle of fasting and feeding. Lignot soon spotted tiny, unidentified objects along the snake’s intestinal lining, or epithelium. “When I started analysing the ‘spheroids’ I initially thought it could...