Stick Out Your Tongue

Tricky Tongues

When a blue-tongued skink feels scared, it opens its mouth, sticks out its tongue, and hisses. The sight of the shocking blue tongue in the skink's bright pink mouth can be so surprising it scares off enemies - or at least confuses them long enough for the skink to escape.

An archerfish shoots down its food. The hungry hunter forces a stream of water through a tube that forms when it presses its tongue against a groove in the roof of its mouth.

Fish think the wiggling pink thing on the tip of an alligator snapping turtle's tongue is a yummy worm. But when they swim up for a bite, the turtle eats them instead.

Long and Lean

Inside a giant anteater's long snout is something even longer-its two-foot-long tongue. To catch ants and termites inside their underground nests, the anteater rips a hole in the nest with its claw, sticks in its snout, and slurps up the bugs with its tongue.

Sharp barbs and sticky spit on the tip of a woodpecker's tongue help it nab insects inside a hole in a tree. When the bird is done eating, it slides its long tongue into a groove that wraps around the inside of its skull.

The 2-inch-long Morgan's Madagascan sphinx moth has an amazing 14-inch tongue. The moth uses its long, long tongue to reach the sugary nectar deep inside a flower called the comet orchid.

Tidy Tongues

How does a gecko clean its eyes? With its tongue!

A snail really knows how to lick its plate clean. Its tongue is covered with thousands of tiny teeth that it uses to scrape up plants off rocks and grind them up to eat.

When a cat feels dirty, it uses its tongue and a little bit of spit to wash itself. Little barbs on the cat's rough tongue act like teeth on a comb to smooth out ruffled fur.

Talented Tongues

A penguin's tongue has spikes that point backward, toward its throat, to prevent slippery fish from sliding out of the bird's mouth.

Why doesn't a giraffe have a pink tongue? Giraffes spend many hours in the sun each day, reaching their tongues around the long thorns on an acacia tree to grab the tasty leaves. Scientists think the dark color keeps giraffe tongues from getting sunburned.

When your body gets too hot, you sweat. But a dog doesn't sweat (except for a bit on the bottom of its paws). Instead, it cools off by sticking out its tongue and panting. But what a dog's long, floppy tongue does best is give big, wet kisses!

Quick to Flick

When a hungry chameleon spots an insect, it doesn't waste any time. Faster than you can blink, the lizard's tongue shoots out, catches the prey, and snaps back into its mouth.

A frog's sticky tongue is attached at the front of its mouth, so it's easy for the frog to quickly roll its tongue out, snatch a bug, and curl its tongue back in.

A snake's tongue is always flicking in and out. With each flick out, the tongue collects tiny particles from the air. With each flick in, the tongue rubs the particles into two tiny holes on the roof of the snake's mouth. These holes, called the Jacobson's organ, do all of the snake's smelling and tasting.

Tongue-less Tasting

A butterfly can taste with its feet. If it likes what it tastes when it lands on a flower, it uses its long tongue like a straw to suck up the flower's sweet nectar.

Octopuses taste and smell food with the suckers on their tentacles. They can stick a tentacle inside a dark ocean crevice to search for a snack hiding inside.

A catfish's tongue can't taste a thing. Instead, the fish relies on taste receptors located on its long whiskers, called barbels, and all over its body. It can even taste with its tail.

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Sep 2007
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved