Study
Feeding in Snakes: Form, Function, and Evolution of the Feeding System
Moon, Brad R.; Penning, David A.; Segall, Marion; Herrel, Anthony
Feeding in Vertebrates, 2019
A review chapter covering skull architecture, jaw mechanics, prey capture, constriction, envenomation and swallowing across snakes, drawing together anatomical, kinematic and performance studies.
- Studied in
- Serpentes
- Sample size
- review chapter on snake feeding morphology and mechanics
The snake skull is highly kinetic: the two halves of the lower jaw are joined at the front by an elastic ligament rather than by a bony joint, and the quadrate bone that suspends the jaw is itself mobile at both ends. Swallowing proceeds by alternating advances of the left and right tooth rows — a ratchet — rather than by gulping. No joint is disarticulated at any point.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Snake feeding performance is a product of skull kinesis and of an elastic mandibular connection, not of joint dislocation.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the anatomical basis for correcting the single most repeated snake fact there is. A dislocation is an injury: a bone leaving a joint it belongs in. Nothing of the kind happens. The lower jaw halves were never fused, so they do not come apart — they were always separate, joined by a stretchy ligament, and the quadrate adds mobility at the back. The real mechanism is better than the myth, because it explains something the myth cannot: how the animal keeps a grip on live prey while it swallows. It walks its jaws over the meal, one side at a time.
- A synthesis; performance data exist for a small number of species relative to snake diversity.
- Skull kinesis varies substantially between snake groups, and generalisations hide that variation.
- Book-chapter format, so the primary measurements sit in the cited literature.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13739-7_14
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-11.