The Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine (saltwater) mammal, and the largest animal known on the planet.
The Blue Whale can grow to 30 metres (98 feet) in length. The female is larger than the male.
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What is special about a Woodpecker’s tongue?
The Woodpecker grabs its prey out of holes and crevices in tree trunks. It has a sticky or barbed tongue. When it sticks its tongue in a hole, the tongue acts like glue and insects stick to it. A Woodpecker can eat 1,000 to 2,000 ants a day. It also eats beetle larvae (grubs).
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The Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) is a medium-sized bird in the Trochilidae family of hummingbirds.
The Anna’s Hummingbird has iridescent bronze-green feathers on its back, with a pale-grey chest and belly, and green sides. The adult male has an iridescent crimson-red to reddish-pink crown. Its tail is dark and slightly forked. It has a long, thin, straight beak. The female is also iridescent, but not as brilliant as the male. She has a dull-green crown.
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How many ants does an Anteater eat?
The Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is a large mammal in the Myrmecophagidae family from Central America and South America. Its head is elongated, with a thick neck, and a long, and tubular snout (nose). At the end of the snout are small nostrils and a small mouth with no teeth.
The Giant Anteater is insectivorous – it eats insects – especially termites and ants, as well as beetles and honeybees. It does not destroy the ant nest or termite mound completely – instead, it leaves some ants and termites so that they can rebuild the colony to ensure that there are more ants and termites in the future. It uses its claws to dig them up, and then it uses its long, sticky tongue to collect the insects. Its tongue has backward-curved papillae with sticky saliva.
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Do giraffes kiss each other?
Many animals, especially mammals, are affectionate towards each other.
Giraffe kissing is the nuzzling of mouths and lips together. Their long tongues – at up to 45 centimetres (18 inches) long – can also be touching or locked around each other’s tongue.
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What is a bifurcated tongue?
Many reptiles, such as snakes and lizards, have a bifurcated tongue.
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How does an Ostrich drink?
An Ostrich has a unique tongue. It is triangular and short (about a quarter of the size of its beak). It is also fixed in position. It cannot use its tongue to lap up water.
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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.
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The Panther Chameleon (Furcifer pardalis) is a reptile in the Chamaeleonidae family.
The male Panther Chameleon can vary in colour from blue to red, green, orange. The female is usually tan and brown with a bit of pink or orange. It has distinctive eyes, with a pin-hole where the pupil is located. Its eyes, with good eyesight, can rotate independently, giving the Panther Chameleon 360 degrees of vision (all around it). It has a very long tongue with a suction-capped tip to catch insects.
It has five toes on each foot, but some are fused together so it looks like it only has two toes on each foot: two together and three together. Its feet act like tongs and can grip branches. Each toe has a sharp claw.
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Do birds have taste buds? Can birds taste their food?
Humans have over 10,000 taste buds on their tongue. Humans can taste food that is sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and so on.
A bird has taste buds in the roof, floor, and base of the tongue.
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What is a lingual nail?
A lingual nail is not a finger nail, nor a toe nail.
Lingual means tongue. A lingual nail is the toughened tip of the tongue of some birds.
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What does the tongue of a Gull look like?
Birds do not have teeth, so their tongues and beaks are adapted to foraging (looking for food) and feeding.
The European Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) is a large coastal bird. People often call it a Seagull, but as pointed out by a reader, it is a Gull, not a Seagull. It feeds on fish and crustaceans, such as crabs and shrimp. It is also a scavenger, feeding on human scraps.
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The Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is a large reptile in the Varanidae family of monitor lizards. It is an ectotherm varanid.
The Komodo Dragon has sharp teeth and a long, yellow, deeply-forked tongue.
It eats invertebrates, birds, and mammals, such as monkeys. It uses venom to kill its prey, because the toxins stop the prey’s wound from clotting. The animal loses blood pressure and lots of blood. The Komodo Dragon takes a bite out of an animal, even a large animal, and the animal dies within a few days.
The Komodo Dragon can eat a monkey or a deer whole. So, why does it need a long tongue?
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How does a giraffe eat thorns?
A giraffe likes to eat the branches and leaves of the Acacia tree. The Acacia tree in Africa has thin, sharp thorns, which protect its small, oval-shaped leaves, called pinnate leaves.
To eat the Acacia leaves, a giraffe has to pick them amongst the thorns. How does the giraffe do this?
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The New Caledonian Giant Gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus) is a reptile in the Diplodactylidae family of gecko lizards. It is also known as Leach’s Giant Gecko.
The New Caledonian Giant Gecko has a thick body with loose skin and a small, stumpy tail. It can vary in colour, from green or grey to light or tan brown.
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What does a snail’s head look like?
A snail’s head has one or two pairs of retractable tentacles: upper tentacles and lower tentacles.
The pair of upper tentacles are long and stick into the air. At the tips of each tentacle is a rounded shape, which is the snail’s eye. They are called eye spots. It has two eyes. These tentacles can also smell and taste the air.
The upper tentacles are also called posterior tentacles or major tentacles.
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The Eastern Shingleback Lizard (Tiliqua rugose asper) is a reptile in the Scincidae family of blue-tongued skinks. It is also called the Two-Headed Skink.
The Eastern Shingleback Lizard is a wide, stumpy-tailed, slow-moving lizard armoured with brown and cream shingles, or scales. It has a triangular-shaped head and a distinct neck. Its tongue is bright blue. Its legs are short.
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Why is the flamingo beak unique?
The flamingo has a large beak, with the biggest part on the bottom and the smallest part on the top. The top part is moveable.
This is the reverse, or opposite, of the beak of other birds. Other birds have a larger top part and a smaller, moveable bottom part.
So, why is the flamingo beak unique and reversed?
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The Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is a large mammal in the Myrmecophagidae family of anteaters. It is in the Pilosa order, which is the same order as the Sloth. It is also known as the Ant Bear.
The Giant Anteater has long, greyish-black fur with white flecks. It has white front legs, with a band of black across its ankles (or wrists). Its back legs are black. It has a grey head with a long, wide black line and a long, thin white line along its side, from mid-stomach, under its ear, and through its eye. Its head is elongated, with a thick neck, and a long, tubular snout (nose). At the end of the snout is a small mouth (with no teeth) and small nostrils (nose holes for breathing). It has a bushy, brown tail, and long front claws. It has small ears and eyes, with poor eyesight. However, it has an excellent sense of smell.
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The African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis) is an aquatic, freshwater amphibian in the Pipidae family of tongueless frogs. It is also known as the African Clawed Toad or the African Claw-Toed Frog.
The African Clawed Frog is greenish-grey with olive-green markings, but albino (white) frogs are common. It has smooth, slippery skin. Its underbelly is creamy-white. It has three short claws on each hind (back) foot. It has webbed feet only on its back feet. Its back legs are very powerful. It front legs have long fingers. It has eyes, with red pupils, on the top of its head. It has a curved, flat nose.
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