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How do snail-eating snakes pull snails out of their shells?

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timber rattlesnake — snake Timber rattlesnake (*Crotalus horridus*).

Snail-eating snakes, which include members of the subfamilies Pareinae and Dipsadinae, possess specialized modifications to their teeth, toothed bones, and lower jaw that allow them to extract a snail from its shell.1

The process involves the following steps:
* Seizing the prey: The snake uses long, delicate teeth located at the front of its upper jaw to grasp the body of the snail.2
* Jaw manipulation: The snake’s skull structure is highly flexible; in these specific subfamilies, the connection between the upper jaw and the quadrate bone is lost, creating four independent units rather than two. This allows the snake to hold the snail with three jaws while the fourth is advanced.3
* Extraction: The lower jaw is moved far forward, and the lower teeth are used to draw the snail's body out of the shell as the jaw is retracted.2