London Zoo: The tongue has power over life and death - Arizona Daily Sun
"The tongue has power over life and death" — Proverbs 18:21
That's meant to caution people about what they say, but the statement is true in a more literal sense across the animal kingdom. Many species have highly modified tongues adapted for specialized functions that allow them to survive.
Alligator snapping turtles use their tongues to attract food. Their tongues have an appendage that is pink and resembles a worm. The turtles stay still for up to 50 minutes underwater with their mouth open and wiggle the appendage to attract fish. Fish who approach hoping to catch a meal instead swim right into the turtle's mouth and become a meal for it.
Woodpeckers reach their tongues into trees to capture insects such as beetle grubs, cicadas and grasshoppers. Their tongues are so long that storing them when not in use is a challenge since their mouths are not big enough to hold them. The base of the tongue attaches to a Y-shaped bone called the hyoid that begins in the nostril of the upper beak, and then extends over the top of the head, under the jaw and into the mouth. The tongue can be retracted along this path over the head when it is not extended.
People are also reading…
The tongue of a blue whale is roughly 5.5 meters long and weighs nearly 2,500 kilograms. This elephant-sized organ allows them to eat 3,600 kilograms of krill in a day. Blue whales fill their mouths with enormous gulps of ocean water, then nearly close their mouths, and use their tongue to push the water out, trapping the krill and other small organisms in keratin structures in their mouth called baleen.
Penguins also make use of keratin to secure their prey. The curved, backward-facing bristles on their tongue (and on their palate) act like fishhooks, and prevent fish, krill, or other prey from escaping. Even a slippery fish can only move towards the penguin's throat.
Blue-tongued skinks use their tongue to scare predators away. When threatened, these lizards hiss, puff up their body to appear bigger, and display their unusual tongue. The surprise appearance of the blue tongue startles potential predators, allowing them to escape to safety.
There are approximately 250 species of freshwater fish in the order Osteoglossiformes, which is Greek for bony tongues. Most famous of these are the arapaima of the South American Amazon and Essequibo basins, and they are among the biggest freshwater fish in the world. The largest of the five species can grow to over 2 meters long and 200 kilograms in weight. They use their bony tongues to crush their prey — mainly fish, but also birds, small mammals, and lizards.
Nectar-eating bats have hairlike projections called papillae at end of their tongues that act like a mop for soaking up liquid. Studies of one nectar-eating bat species, Pallas's long-tongued bat, revealed that dynamic movement of these projections by blood engorgement makes them more effective at collecting nectar by increasing the surface area and by trapping liquid between papillae.
Tongues are indeed powerful!
Karen B. London, Ph.D. is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, Certified Professional Dog Trainer, and an author of six books on canine training and behavior, including her most recent, Treat Everyone Like a Dog: How a Dog Trainer's World View Can Improve Your Life.
Comments
Post a Comment