On a fall day in Gainesville, Georgia, Justin Kobylka, the forty-two-year-old owner of Kinova Reptiles, was preparing to cut open two clutches of snake eggs. He was hoping to hit upon some valuable, ...

In the first 24 hours after a python devours its massive prey, its heart grows 25%, its cardiac tissue softens dramatically, and the organ squeezes harder and harder to more than double its pulse.