Arterial acid-base status during digestion and following vascular infusion of NaHCO3 and HCl in the South American rattlesnake, Crotalus durissus

Our data show that digesting rattlesnakes exhibit respiratory compensations to the alkaline tide, whereas artificially induced metabolic acid-base disturbances of same magnitude remain uncompensated. It seems difficult to envision that the central and peripheral chemoreceptors would experience different stimuli during these conditions. One explanation for the different ventilatory responses could be that digestion induces a more relaxed state with low responsiveness to ventilatory stimuli.