The python has a hard skin like armor

Dubbed the "rhino in the snake world" because it has 15 times the skin of ordinary pythons.

Calabar (Calabaria reinhardtii) is not the largest or most dangerous python in the world, but a new study found super-hard skin like armor that made it one of the hardest to beat, Earth Touch News on Monday. 12/12 reported.

Close up of hard skin like Calabar python armor.(Video: YouTube).

This golden brown python is only about a meter long, has no venom and specializes in hunting small animals. They spend most of their time on the ground and carpeting leaves in warm forests in Africa. Calabar pythons often enter the mouse cave to find their favorite food are young mice.

While hunting young calves, the Calabar python faces great danger as the self-defense reaction of parent mice. They can catch an attack from an adult mouse and the mouse bite is uncomfortable. Large and sharp incisors of mice can cause serious injuries, even taking enemies' lives. But Calabar seemed unafraid of the danger.

"When attacked or threatened, instead of fleeing, C. reinhardtii relies on passive self-defense, including curling up, hiding his head and raising the tail of a lighter color than the rest of the body. "The University of Missouri team said.

To learn the secret of prey on pythons, researchers examined their skin. They measured the thickness of the skin, looked at the microscopic structure of the skin and used a hypodermic needle directly into the skin specimen. They also perform similar tests on the skin of 13 other snakes around the world with diverse living practices such as prey, rattlesnake, long-striped snakes.

Calabar python skin is like an armor.

The team discovered Calabar python skin like an armor . Compared to pythons or snakes of the same size, the skin of this species is 15 times thicker. The unique scales layout on Calabar python skin minimizes weaknesses. Their skin is not completely puncture-resistant, but more force is needed on the needle to penetrate than other species in the experiment. That means that the teeth of an angry mother's mouse may not cause much danger.

The secret to making Calabar python skin both strong and flexible lies deep within the dermis, where the collagen bundle is arranged in overlapping layers. This is also the characteristic that makes rhino skin hard. Therefore, researchers call Calabar "rhino in the snake world".