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Figures
- Fig. 1.
Percentage of ingested meal remaining in the stomach as a function of time postfeeding (days) for Python molurus. All pythons had consumed meals equaling approximately 25% of their body mass. Mass of stomach contents was measured from 3–8 pythons per sampling period. In this and all following figures, error bars represent ±1 S.E.M. and are omitted if the S.E.M. is smaller than the width of the symbol for mean value.
- Fig. 2.
X-rays of the midsection of a Python molurus taken at (A) 1 day, (B) 2 days, (C) 3 days, (D) 4 days and (E) 6 days following consumption of a rat weighing 25% of the snake's body mass.
- Fig. 3.
Intragastric pH of Python molurus (N=7) as a function of time postfeeding (days). The insert illustrates the position of the pH electrode (attached to the rat's head) within the python's stomach. Note the decline in gastric pH following feeding and subsequent return after 7–9 days of digestion. The dotted portion of the x-axis signifies that the initial increase in pH upon completion of gastric digestion began 6–8 days postfeeding.
- Fig. 4.
The time (days) it took after feeding for stomach pH of Python molurus (N=6) to return to prefeeding levels plotted as a function of meal size (% of snake body mass). Note that as relative meal size increases so does the duration of maintaining an acidic stomach.
- Fig. 5.
Mean V̇O2 at 30°C of Python molurus prior to (day 0) and up to 10 days following the ingestion of (A) intact rats, (B) steak, (C), ground rat, (D) liquid diet and (E) ground rat directly infused into the proximal small intestine. All meals were equal in mass to approximately 25% of snake body mass. Note the decrease in the magnitude of the postfeeding metabolic response as the workload on the stomach is reduced from digesting intact rat to intestinally infused ground rat meals.
- Table 1.
Body mass, meal size, standard metabolic rate (SMR), and postfeeding metabolic measures of peak oxygen consumption (V̇O2), scope of peak V̇O2, duration, specific dynamic action (SDA) and SDA coefficient of Burmese pythons (Python molurus) in response to five meal treatments
Meal treatment Variable Intact rat Steak Ground rat Liquid meal Infused ground rat P Body mass (g) 2394±341a 2316±434a 2429±192a 5240±509b 1673±275a <0.0001 N 5 6 6 4 4 Meal size (% of body mass) 25.0±0.1 25.3±0.02 25.0±0.0 25.0±0.0 25.0±0.0 0.41 SMR (ml h-1) 56.6±7.8 56.8±8.5 57.5±4.4 111.6±7.1 49.4±4.5 0.53 SMR (ml h-1) adjusted to 2400 g 56.6±7.8 58.4±1.8 57.2±2.5 66.0±1.4 64.2±2.6 0.052 SMR (ml g-1 h-1) 0.024±0.001a 0.025±0.001a,b 0.024±0.001a 0.022±0.001a 0.031±0.003b 0.008 Peak V̇O2 (ml h-1) 963±145a 781±160a,b 681±68b 867±68a 229±24c <0.0001 Peak V̇O2 (ml h-1) adjusted to 2400 g 965±48a 797±77a,b 672±34b 433±25c 328±29c <0.0001 Peak V̇O2 (ml g-1 h-1) 0.402±0.021a 0.330±0.031a,b 0.278±0.013b 0.166±0.010c 0.139±0.011c <0.0001 Scope of peak V̇O2 16.8±0.6a 13.2±1.5b 11.7±0.7b 7.7±0.58c 4.5±0.2c <0.0001 Duration (days) 8 6 6 6 6 SDA (kJ) 1259±174a 1111±203a,b 943±87b 1196±92a 289±38c <0.0001 SDA (kJ) adjusted to 2400 g 1269±47a 1154±48a 938±54b 549±29c 422±18c <0.0001 SDA (kJ kg-1) 528±19a 480±20a 391±22b 231±12c 175±7c <0.0001 SDA coefficient 26.5±1.0a 30.5±1.2a 19.5±1.1b 14.4±0.8c 8.8±1.2d <0.0001 -
Variables are defined in the text. Values are presented as means ± 1 S.E.M.
For each metabolic measure, superscript letters that differ denote significant (P<0.05) differences between means as determined from post-hoc pairwise comparisons.
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- Fig. 6.
Total specific dynamic action (SDA; 600 kJ) of a 1 kg Python molurus resulting from the digestion of a rat meal equal in mass to 25% of the snake's body mass, partitioned among the components of gastric performance, protein synthesis, gastrointestinal (GI) upregulation and other activities. Note in this example that the energy expended on gastric performance is the largest component of SDA.
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