Australian lizard scares away predators with ultra-violet tongue

Researchers investigate how the blue-tongued skink uses a full-tongue display to deter attacking predators

Date:  June 7, 2018

Source:  Springer

When attacked, bluetongue skinks open their mouth suddenly and as wide as possible to reveal their conspicuously coloured tongues. This surprise action serves as their last line of defence to save themselves from becoming prey says Martin Whiting, of Macquarie University in Australia, who conceived the study just published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. The research revealed that the back of the northern bluetongue skink's tongue is much more UV-intense and luminous than the front, and that this section is only revealed in the final stages of an imminent attack.

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Chameleons’ Secret Hunting Weapon: Super-Sticky Mucus

A thick, honey-like adhesive at the tip of a chameleon’s tongue lets it bring its prey to its mouth after snagging it, scientists discover.

 By Carrie Arnold

PUBLISHED JUNE 20, 2016

Chameleons have a sticky problem.

To catch their insect dinner, their tongues unfurl forward faster than a jet plane. It’s a precise attack, and it’s remarkably successful. But snagging prey with their tongue is only the first step. In order to eat, they have to bring the prey back to their mouth.

There lies the problem, says physicist Pascal Damman of the University of Mons in Belgium. Chameleons don’t wrap their tongues around their prey, which means that the food they catch must somehow stick to their tongue.

In a new paper in Nature Physics, Damman and colleagues show that chameleons produce a viscous, sticky mucus on the tip of their tongue that’s 400 times thicker than human saliva. Tiny amounts of this syrupy goo with the thickness of honey is what lets these animals catch prey that can weigh up to one-third their body weight.

“It’s a very simple mechanism, and it shows things don’t have to be very complex to be very effective,” he said.

Read on and watch video …

Frog's tongue 'can lift three times own body weight'

By Jonathan WebbScience reporter, BBC News

New research shows that the pulling force of a frog's tongue can be up to three times the animal's own weight.

Zoologists placed the horned frog, a predator known to swallow whole mice, in front of a glass slide and tempted it with a tasty cricket.

Stronger pulling forces were measured when contact with the glass was briefer and less mucus was left behind.

The study, from the journal Scientific Reports, suggests the action of the tongue is similar to sticky tape.

"It's the first time we've ever measured how well frog tongues stick," said Dr Thomas Kleinteich, who performed the experiments at the University of Kiel in Germany.

Dr Kleinteich works in a group that studies biological adhesives, including gecko and beetle feet, with a view to finding new designs for sticky applications like boot soles, tapes and parcel closures.

"The thing that's interesting about frog tongues is that they're really fast," he told BBC News. "It only takes milliseconds."

The South American horned frog in particular, a popular pet, is known for its ability to snatch morsels up to half its own size - from locusts and fish to other amphibians and small rodents.

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