- You can tell about a person's health by looking at the color of their tongue. In Ancient Chinese medicine and homeopathy, a tongue’s color was indicative of serious health issues. A pink tongue signifies good health, while a dark red tongue tells a story of infections and allergies. White patches over a tongue are due to fungal infections while blisters demonstrate a negative reaction to a certain medicine or an elevated blood pressure.
Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay.A flamingo’s tongue becomes hard while eating due to the presence of erectile tissues.
- There are erectile tissues in the tongue of a flamingo. When a flamingo feeds, the erectile tissues in its tongue fill up with blood and become hard, helping the flamingo keep a stable head while eating.
- Contrary to popular belief, the whites and bumps present on our tongue are not taste buds. These small bumps are called papillae and they are home to taste buds that are not visible to the naked eye.
- The ability to roll one's tongue is not always due to genetics–through practice, people can also learn to do it by themselves. According to studies and research findings, there are other environmental factors that dictate the ability of a person to roll their tongue.
- The mammal with the largest tongue in relation to its body size is the tube-lipped nectar bat.
Sean Robertson/Unsplash. A chameleon has the fastest tongue on the planet.
- The fastest tongue in nature is that of the chameleon. It can extend to double the size of its body and it only takes a second for a chameleon’s tongue to achieve a speed of 60 mph.
- It is a popular myth that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body–although it is considerably strong, a person’s jaw muscles have more pressure, and the glutes produce the most force compared to all the muscle groups in the human body.
Jelleke Vanooteghe/Unsplash. Babies use their tongue as a means of exploration.
- It is true that the tongue is the most sensitive part of a person's body–babies utilize this feature to explore the world around them. They do not use their tongue to taste other objects only because they are teething but to also learn more about the world around them through the sense of smell.
- On average, a male tongue is longer than that of a woman. The average tongue length for a man is 3.3 inches long, measured from the back of the tongue and at the epiglottis to the tip of the tongue. By contrast, the average length of a female tongue is 3.1 inches and this fact is also evident in the world records for the longest tongues.
- According to official records, Nick Stoeberl has the longest tongue in the male population, measuring in at 3.9 inches, while California student Chanel Tapper holds the record for the woman with the longest tongue, at 3.8 inches.
