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