Where does the strength come from?

[critter]

How does a fairly docile animal (my central american redtail boa) get so strong from just sitting on a branch, and climbing on me? This might have been covered somewhere else but I just started on here and haven't had time to read all the inqueries.

Snakes are wiser than any human, all they do is listen.

[Tj]

Re: Where does the strength come from?

If you think about it, most of the redtail's are ground dwelling snakes. they do not spend a large amount climbing, (well some might) but the strength comes from their food. If they are getting the right food with protiens their strength will build. If you don't feed it right it will become weak.

[Doug]

Re: Where does the strength come from?

HI,
 It may be some type of hormone that enhances the animals muscle development. Tigers in  a cage will flex isometric like to build and keep muscles. I ve noticed that young children who exersize regular really have dramatic muscle growth even young women,, my guess is that children have large amounts of human growth hormone which helps them grow larger and a side effect is muscle growth. this level HGH really declines with age ..
  Reptiles may have a natural muscle growth hormone that helps keep that animal fit and strong during that long down time post feeding most snakes probably crawl off an hide. we humans have to work out to stimulate muscle growth but reptiles may only need to feed.. Take a human an put them in a bed on their back for a week and the'll lose about half that muscle mass rather quickly..
 There's so much we don't know about reptiles, I saw an article on discovery about kamoto dragons are immune to the bacteria in their mouth and rarely get a dermal infection even when swiming in water thats really nasty with rotting flesh and having open cuts....
we get a  scratch from a kamoto dragon and your gonna probably die with sepsis rather quickly..  
                doug