Snake anatomy experts, I need you

[user 29560]

Hey guys, this is just a personal interest question, but I'm having an unusually hard time finding an answer to it using my generally adept googling skills. I'm sure there must be some amateur (and even professional) herpatologists here.

While I like snakes in general, I'm particularly fond of pythons and specifically I am most interested in the Morelia genus. A physical trait of the Morelia snakes that I find very distinct and which attracted me to them is the shaping of the head and how it contrasts more starkly with the neck than in other species. For lack of better terminology, the back of the snake's head appears larger and more pronounced, as though it has larger/stronger muscles in the back of its jaws for greater bite strength. I've included a carpet python photo from google which I drew a circle to illustrate the area I'm referring to.

Can anyone more educated than myself provide me with more technical descriptions of the parts of a snake's head? I've been able to find the correct names of the various scales around the mouth (super-labial, sub-labial, etc), but the rest of the anatomy specifically related to the head has been very hard to track down and I usually end up getting all of the body internals with an arrow pointing to the "Head". If anyone wants to further elaborate and identify more features of the head with technical descriptions, I'd be very interested to learn more.

Cheers!

 

[eipper]

The area you have circled is where the muscles sit over the rear of the skull and are part of the anchor points for the complex jaw structure. Generally larger constrictors have quite large muscle to assist in the prolonged holding of prey while constriction subdues them. With arboreal ambush predators like Green Pythons, Rough Scaled and Carpet Pythons, the prey is often grasped from below them while they are suspended from a perch. So the prey's weight and struggling has caused an evolutionary shift towards stronger muscles in the head to lessen the chance of loosing a meal.

The technical names and functions of snake's anatomy are found in some papers as well as some vet books. My reference library is being moved atm and I cannot refer you to any publications atm.

Hope this helps,
Scott

 

[user 29560]

They're called LOBES.