Nature & Environment
The Tiniest Chameleons Have the Fastest and Most Powerful Tongues (VIDEO)
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Jan 04, 2016 09:12 AM EST
The tiniest chameleons apparently deliver the most powerful tongue lashings. Scientists have discovered the true extent of the chameleons' awesome capability for using their tongue as a type of sticky whip to capture insects.
This ability in chameleons has been studied before-but only with larger species. In this latest study, the researchers wanted to find the upper limit of chameleon tongue performance. That's why they gathered individuals of 20 species of widely varying sizes. Then, they perched these species one by one in front of a camera that shot 3,000 frames per second. In each measurement, a cricket hung off a small dangling mesh to tempt the chameleons.
So what did they find? The smaller the chameleon, the higher the peak acceleration, relative power, and distance of tongue extension relative to body size. In fact, they found that the ballistic tongue projection in a chameleon that would fit on your thumb produced a peak acceleration that was 264 times greater than the acceleration due to gravity. In other words, the tongue could go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a hundredth of a second, though it only needs about 20 milliseconds to snag a cricket.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. All of the chameleons have the same catapult-like apparatus for launching the tongue, but proportional to their size, smaller chameleons have a bigger one than larger chameleons. They're a bit like sports cars with relatively powerful engines.
The findings don't only show a bit more about chameleons, though; they also show that it's important to look at smaller species when looking at physical performance.
The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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First Posted: Jan 04, 2016 09:12 AM EST
The tiniest chameleons apparently deliver the most powerful tongue lashings. Scientists have discovered the true extent of the chameleons' awesome capability for using their tongue as a type of sticky whip to capture insects.
This ability in chameleons has been studied before-but only with larger species. In this latest study, the researchers wanted to find the upper limit of chameleon tongue performance. That's why they gathered individuals of 20 species of widely varying sizes. Then, they perched these species one by one in front of a camera that shot 3,000 frames per second. In each measurement, a cricket hung off a small dangling mesh to tempt the chameleons.
So what did they find? The smaller the chameleon, the higher the peak acceleration, relative power, and distance of tongue extension relative to body size. In fact, they found that the ballistic tongue projection in a chameleon that would fit on your thumb produced a peak acceleration that was 264 times greater than the acceleration due to gravity. In other words, the tongue could go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a hundredth of a second, though it only needs about 20 milliseconds to snag a cricket.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. All of the chameleons have the same catapult-like apparatus for launching the tongue, but proportional to their size, smaller chameleons have a bigger one than larger chameleons. They're a bit like sports cars with relatively powerful engines.
The findings don't only show a bit more about chameleons, though; they also show that it's important to look at smaller species when looking at physical performance.
The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Related Articles
Why Some Wild Animals Tolerate Humans More Than Others
Crows Caught on Camera Building Special Hook Tools
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone