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Salamander with a ballistic tongue

Nature volume 389, pages 27–28 (1997)Cite this article

Species of Hydromantes are found in California, Italy and France. They are the only plethodontids, the largest family of salamanders, found in the Old World, all other members being restricted to the Americas2,4,5,6. As well as the extremely long tongue, Hydromantes has other remarkable features including large webbed feet for climbing vertical cave walls and highly sensitive binocular vision which permits detection of prey in as low a light level as 10-5 cd m-2, the illumination level of an overcast, moonless night3.

In most groups of salamanders, the tongue skeleton is restricted to the floor of the mouth when at rest, but that of Hydromantes (and other members of the tribe Bolitoglossini) has tapered and elongated posterior elements that extend over the shoulders and are sheathed for their entire length in circumferential fibres of the tongue protractor muscles1 (Fig. 2a, b). The protractor muscles are visible as bulges along the sides of the body (Figs 1, 2a) and are unusual in that they exert not only pulling forces as in most salamanders, but also squeezing forces on the elongate elements of the tongue skeleton that launch the tongue from the mouth (much as a melon seed can be shot from between the fingers).

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Figure 1: Live H. supramontis firing its tongue at a housefly.
Figure 2: Tongue projection system showing tongue skeleton, associated skeletal elements and the main tongue protractor and retractor muscles.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building

    Stephen M. Deban & David B. Wake

  2. University of California, Berkeley, 94720-3160, California, USA

    Stephen M. Deban & David B. Wake

  3. Brain Research Institute, University of Bremen, FB 2, Bremen, D-28334, Germany

    Gerhard Roth

Authors
  1. Stephen M. Deban
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  2. David B. Wake
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  3. Gerhard Roth
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Deban, S., Wake, D. & Roth, G. Salamander with a ballistic tongue. Nature 389, 27–28 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/37898

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