For their survival from hatching or birth, snakes depend on their ability to eat other animals. Thus, ontogeny and reproduction occur only if eating other animals is successful. Determining the degree to which feeding is successful must be studied at a variety of levels. I briefly review past and recent studies of feeding mechanics, focusing on those clades I have observed, and outline some features of feeding that puzzle me. The questions arise partly from unusual features of snakes, but the answers, when found, might have broader potential application. The questions focus primarily on how cells and tissues perform behaviors that are extreme in either space or time. When they become available, I anticipate that the answers will reveal aspects of evolutionary processes underlying the differentiation of species-specific or clade-specific traits. In the process, I reflect on how studies of feeding have paralleled some patterns of scientific progress, and how current fads might either inhibit or promote that progress.