Showing posts with label blue tongue animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blue tongue animals. Show all posts

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Will someone please figure this out!


Calling all future zoologists will you PLEASE figure out why animals have blue tongues! The scientific community must be asleep because we have been able to find giant squids and document them on camera, launch a rover to Mars, but I still cannot find out why certain animals have blue tongues.   

I recently started thinking about blue tongued animals again because of this picture showing up on my desktop wallpaper.
 
It was taken last October by my friend Peter Zuzga in Yellowstone National Park. We stood in the cold for hours photographing them. When I first saw this picture I just thought the baby bighorn sheep was SOOOO cute. But now she mocks me with her blue tongue every time I see her.

To the World Wide Web I went yet again hoping hoping to find the answer to why some animals have blue tongues.  I bet your wondering “how many animals could possibly have blue tongues?” Well, here are just a few animals which have blue tongues off the top of my head; the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the blue-tongued skink, polar bears, giraffe, some rattlesnakes, and bison. Let’s breakdown what we know and see if we can make an educated guess as to why bighorn sheep and bison, two of my favorite animals, have blue tongues.

Polar bears are thought to have blue tongues because they have black skin. The black skin is an adaptation they have to help keep them warm in cold climates which has evolved over many many years.  Blue-tongued skinks and rattlesnakes are thought to use their tongue along with hissing and other threatening postures to scare off other animals looking to eat them.  A giraffe is assumed to have a blue tongue as an adaptation to keep it from getting sunburned while the giraffe is pulling off leaves in the desert.  

Ok, now to the bison and bighorns.

As an adaptation to keep them warm? Um, I am going to have to say know. Having seen many bighorn sheep and bison pelts they do not have black skin.  Also bison have extremely thick fur and do not feel cold until the temperatures reach -45 degrees Fahrenheit. 

As a way to scare predators?  Yeah, again no.  Having been snuck up on by a wild bison predators have more reasons to be scared than a tongue. For example size. A male bison can reach 1,000 pounds and a female about 900 pounds. They can run at speed of close to 30 miles per hour and use their heads like a battering ram.  Also bison can leap a 6 foot object from a standing position.   As for bighorn sheep they have horns which also make effective battering rams, they run at speeds of close to 20 miles per hour, and can run down a steep slope with no problem.  Imagine getting one of these animals to stick their tongue out at you. Now I ask you are you scared of that?  
To protect from sunburn?  We may have something here. While there is NO scientific evidence yet to back up this theory it may help protect their tongues from sunburn.  Both bison and bighorn sheep live in environments where there is very little tree cover and a higher elevations where the sun’s rays are more intense, so it might make sense.  I told my theory to a bison biologist friend who told me quite simply “we don’t know why their tongues are that color.”

So, all you scientists and graduate students someone please take up the investigation and find out why animals have blue tongues