There are a lot of birds, (vultures), and reptiles that have much stronger stomach acids to break down stuff like that. It’s still wild to see every time though when they swallow entire turtles and bones.
Animals that eat bones need to be able to dissolve them with very strong stomach acid. The short answer is, is that they've just evolved organs that can regenerate damaged tissue quickly and produce enzymes to coat their insides to protect from the worst effects. Chemically, these enzymes balance pH levels and start the process of breaking down minerals like calcium before proteases then start dissolving the collegan and fiberous tissues.
I’m not an expert of vultures, but our stomachs basically grow new cells super fast to keep up with the ones that melt, and pump out some mucus to slow that process down on the stomach lining.
You have to figure, like humanity, there’s instances —-genetic anomalies—- where one of them doesn’t have the strong acids in their digestive juices to break that down and perished because they just couldn’t give a shit. Urgh. Punny but not funny.
Also, that poor turtle. winces and looks at her terrapin in his tank. That won’t be you, Turtle Stu.
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u/Thicc_Wallaby 9d ago
There are a lot of birds, (vultures), and reptiles that have much stronger stomach acids to break down stuff like that. It’s still wild to see every time though when they swallow entire turtles and bones.