What if your tongue was twice the length of your body?
What could you do?
What would you like to do?
Can you invent something useful, magical and fun by using the flexible yet powerful chameleon’s tongue as inspiration?
Sticking out your tongue may be a bit rude but is a powerful weapon if you are a chameleon.
Chameleons are amazing creatures. They can change colour based on their moods, they have 360 degree vision, and they have fast and powerful tongues. They use their tongue to catch prey.
The secret to the chameleon’s success is a special elastic tissue in their tongue. If you watch the videos carefully you can see that they fold their tongues up like an accordion.
When they are ready to catch to strike the chameleon releases its tongue muslece. The tongue spring forwards and catches its prey.
There are tiny chameleons, some of them can sit on a human thumb, they can propel their tongues just as quickly and with as much force as larger chameleon. In some cases, the smaller chameleons’ tongues are even faster and stronger!
So how long is a chameleon’s tongue?
The tongue is approximately twice the lenght of the chamelon’s
Kangaroos also use the elastic recoil to jump around and humans use the same principle to save energy while running.
Biomimicry for Young Children 