What animal has a tongue twice the length of its body?
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Make every day more interesting. Each day a surprising fact opens a world of fascinating information for you to explore. Did you know that….? 
| Original photo by Kurit afshen/ Shutterstock |
| Chameleon tongues are about twice the length of their bodies. | Although many people tend to focus on the chameleon's ability to change its color (both for camouflage and to attract — or warn — potential mates), this amazing lizard's tongue is an often-overlooked wonder. First, it's the fastest "gun" in the animal kingdom: It can go from zero to 60 mph in one-hundredth of a second, something that the world's fastest cars could never dream of achieving. But another surprising attribute of this incredible muscle is that it's twice as long as a chameleon's body on average — a handy feature when sneaking up on unsuspecting prey. Translated into human biological terms, that's the same as a person having a 10- to 12-foot-long tongue.
So how do chameleons, which are not particularly large lizards, keep this long tongue in such a small mouth? Well, scientists have discovered that a chameleon's tongue contains elastic tissue that allows them to effectively store this secret weapon "folded up like an accordion," in the words of National Geographic. When hunting prey, muscles contract in the mouth, similar to pulling back the string of a bow, and once that tension is released, simple physics takes over. The chameleon's tongue propels forward with blink-and-you'll-miss-it speed in a process scientists call "elastic recoil." Then, a super-sticky, viscous fluid at the tongue's tip ensnares the whiplashed insect, and the recoil returns the freshly caught meal to the chameleon's mouth. Yum.
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 | | Giraffes have the longest tongues of any land mammal. | | |
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| Giraffes have the longest tongues of any land mammal. |  |  |
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| The country of __ contains roughly half of the world's chameleon species. |  |
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 | Numbers Don't Lie |
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 | | Length (in inches) of the longest human tongue from tip to teeth | | 3.97 |
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| | | Percentage of people said to be "supertasters" | | 25 |
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| | Running time (in minutes) of the film "Rango," an animated Western featuring a gun-toting chameleon | | 107 |
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| | | Size (in millimeters) of the world's smallest chameleon, the nano-chameleon Brookesia nana | | 22 |
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 | Chameleons have 360-degree vision. |
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| While their pincer-like feet, super-long tongues, and color-changing camouflage already make them pretty otherworldly, a chameleon's vision is also something special. Chameleons can independently move each of their eyeballs, giving them a 360-degree view of their environment. Chameleon eyes also work like a telephoto lens, giving them the ability to zoom in on potential prey. This highly unusual visual system aids these fascinating lizards in catching food, avoiding predators, and mating. In other words, a chameleon's eyes are perhaps the ultimate evolutionary superpower. | | |
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posted by June Lesley at 5:12 AM
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