Dang-it I blinked!
I thought touching my nose with my tongue was cool but this salamander's tongue is way cooler. It's extremely fast and its almost as long as its body. Here's some slow-mow videos where you can actually see the tongue in action. More info below
Great video with extra info on another animal we covered
More slow-mow
Interesting differences because of temperature change
This salamander belongs to the family Plethodontidae and genus Hydromantes. They are found in France, Italy, and California.
They are a lung-less species of salamander and they breath entirely through their skin and lining of their mouth. It uses large webbed feet to walk up vertical wall and its eyes are sensitive enough to hunt in darkness equivalent to an overcast moonless night. They are very unique in their tongue specialization.
The tongue is as long as 80% of the salamander's body length. Their tongue is an actual projectile fired by a ballistic mechanism (verses an extrapolation of the general tongue mechanism). It shoots a part of its tongue skeleton at its prey through muscle contractions within its body. The launch only takes a few milliseconds with pin point accuracy even in the dark. Prey is pulled back in with another set of looped retractile muscles after getting stuck on the sticky pad at the end of the salamander's tongue.
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