Pythons are famous for swallowing enormous meals whole—including morsels bigger than their own body mass. In order to digest these infrequent feasts, the snake’s heart works overtime by increasing its ...

In the first 24 hours after a python devours its massive prey, its heart grows 25%, its cardiac tissue softens dramatically, and the organ squeezes harder and harder to more than double its pulse.

If a human ate 50 percent of their weight in one sitting, their body might not take it. Their stomach would expand, and their heart would begin trying to furiously pump blood to sustain the metabolism ...

In the first 24 hours after a python devours its massive prey, its heart grows 25%, its cardiac tissue softens dramatically, and the organ squeezes harder and harder to more than double its pulse.