I should have done this as a reply, but got busy. I should have been more
specific when I said that the only "herp" I knew to swallow prey alive were
garter snakes. Amphibians do have "teeth" of sort (vomer teeth on the roof
of the mouth, at least), so even frogs are using something. However, the
"teeth" of a frog are probably mostly for holding onto the prey and probably
not really effective at puncturing it (with obvious exceptions like
Ceratophrys and such). So, yes. Frogs do tend to swallow food alive. As
do most salamanders and probably most apodans (I can never spell "caecelean"
right... and probably didn't just now). Interestingly though, some of the
most nasty bites a person can get are apparently from salamanders like
Amphiuma. I've never been nailed by one of these, but have read (okay...
including from TFH books... geesh, but also from REAL sources) that it is
bad. I've seen people get bitten by Ceratophrys and pixie frogs though and
it looks a bit worse than expected, but note horrible (I saw the same guy
get nailed by a monitor lizard... that was closer to horrible...)
Having said all that, I've fed live prey to Amphiuma and to the horned frogs
and to pixies and I'd agree that the prey dies in the stomach. After
feeding live mice to pixie frogs you can usually see the stomach churning
for a while. Kicking even. It's almost like "Aliens" but without Sigourney
Weaver.
Greg
--
Gregory J. Watkins-Colwell
Dept. of Biology
Sacred Heart University
5151 Park Avenue
Fairfield, CT 06432
and
Yale Peabody Museum
Dept. of Vertebrate Zoology
170 Whitney Ave
PO Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118
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