The weirdest (and coolest) tongues in the animal kingdom - Cella Wright
Could it be a succulent,
pink, wiggling worm?
No, it was actually this
alligator snapping turtle's
blood-engorged tongue appendage
acting as a lure.
It's far from the only animal
doing tongue trickery.
Fish attracted to prey-like ripples
at the water's surface
might find themselves in the jaws
of water snakes
who used their tongues
to put those ripples there.
Snowy egrets do the same thing.
And puff adders lingually mimic insect
movements to snag amphibians.
Tongues are getting all kinds of busy
across the animal kingdom—
for many different reasons.
Some are used as murderous missiles
in ambush attacks.
Within the chameleon's mouth,
a tongue muscle squeezes a series
of concentric sheaths
around a cartilaginous rod,
storing elastic energy.
As the muscle further contracts,
the tongue tissues slip
over the tip of the rod,
releasing their stored energy and
accelerating the tongue forward.
With a suction-cup-like-tip
and saliva 400 times thicker—
and therefore much stickier— than our own,
the chameleon's tongue shoots
out at almost 5 meters per second
and ensnares its target.
The rosette-nosed pygmy chameleon can
shoot its tongue 2.5 times its body length
at speeds equivalent to a car going
from 0 to 96 kilometers per hour
in a hundredth of a second.
It might take the cake when it comes
to the animal kingdom's fastest tongue—
and the one that stretches the longest
relative to body size.
Except the cake is obviously a bug.
A giant palm salamander's
spring-loaded tongue, meanwhile,
packs its punch from two long muscles
that stretch past its front legs.
Once contracted, they compress the arms
of the cartilaginous skeleton
at the base of the salamander's tongue,
which then launches out with the rest
of its tongue tissues.
From this elastic energy release,
the salamander achieves more instantaneous
power per kilogram of muscle
than any vertebrate on record,
affording it whip-quick captures.
Certain amphibians have their tongues
routed to the front of their mouths.
With the drop of its lower jaw,
the northern leopard frog's
tongue flips out.
And because frog tongues are super soft—
up to 10 times softer than our own—
they stretch to cover a wide surface area.
They're also covered in glands
that secrete sticky saliva
to maximize those areas of contact.
Then, because the leopard frog's tongue
is positioned so far forward,
it can retract its eyes to help push
the prey down its throat.
Blue-tongued skinks, meanwhile,
seem to display their extraordinary
tongues defensively,
dazing predators and robbing
their aerial attacks of momentum.
For other animals,
it's all about lingual length.
When red-bellied woodpeckers'
extended, barbed tongues
aren't probing for
protein-rich comestibles,
they're wrapped around their skulls.
And giant anteaters evoke the question,
"why have teeth or a mouth you can
open any considerable amount
when you could have
a 60-centimeter-long tongue
clad in backward-facing spines
and adhesive saliva
that catches up to 30,000 termites
and ants a day?"
To which evolution answered,
"you actually have a really good point."
Tube-lipped nectar bats' food
sources are less animated.
But still, to reach bellflower nectar,
their tongues are 50% longer
than their bodies—
the longest relative to body size
among mammals.
Tongue textures also vary widely.
Tiny structures called papillae
cover tongues,
facilitating touch and taste sensitivity
and more.
Rainbow lorikeet papillae bloom into
feathery projections that sop up nectar.
And penguins press their backward-facing,
centimeter-long, spiny tongue
and palate papillae together
to secure their slippery catch
and direct it into their gullet.
Meanwhile, sandpapery feline papillae are
thought to retain saliva
during self-grooming,
helping cats cool, detangle,
and distribute scents.
And, of course, some reptilian tongues
reach a fork in their roads.
Snakes spread their tongue tips
apart near the ground
and whip them up and down in the air,
sending odor molecules back into their
vomeronasal organs.
Like having two ears, each tongue tip
delivers a slightly different
odor sampling from the environment,
helping establish a more
comprehensive stereo scent map.
This way, snakes can determine
where an odor cue is strongest
and stay on the trails of prey and mates.
And that is just a taste of the
fascinating things you'll find
when the animal kingdom opens wide
and sticks its tongue out at you.
