Birds have many different types, shapes, and sizes of tongues, depending upon the species, and what they eat. Birds don’t have teeth, and that means that the tongue is very important. 

A human tongue is a muscle. A bird tongue is a muscle too, but tougher and harder than a human tongue. Birds have five bones in their tongue. These bones are known as the hyoid apparatus. The five bones are: paraglossals, basihyale, urohyale, ceratobranchiate, and epibranchiate.