Slingshot Tongues of Chameleons and Salamanders Could Transform Tech in Medicine and Space

The inspiration for the next new technology could come from anywhere — including from a chameleon or a salamander. According to a new analysis in Current Biology, the tongues of these two creatures could inspire a stream of novel innovations, some with significant implications for human health and exploration.

Revealing that the same “slingshot” system supports the tongue movements of these reptiles, the study provides important insights into the origin and mechanics of chameleon and salamander motion, while also paving the way for breakthroughs in medical, search-and-rescue, and space technologies.

Indeed, the results stress that the solutions to some of the most pressing technological problems are found in surprising places, with the fast-moving tongues of these reptiles having the potential to inform the creation of new blood-clot-targeting tools and recovery instruments for tough-to-reach objects on Earth and in space.

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Similar Tongues of Chameleons and Salamanders

Perhaps surprisingly, the worlds of chameleons and salamanders are far from the same. While chameleons tend to live in the trees, salamanders typically inhabit cooler and wetter homes, like rivers, ponds, and caves. But despite these differences in habitat, these reptiles find food in a spectacularly similar way — by ambushing insects with their speedy, sticky tongues.

Previous studies have described the visual similarity of the tongue movements of these two reptiles, but none have investigated whether this visual similarity actually translates to a mechanical similarity. Thus, to address this gap in the research, the authors of the new analysis thoroughly compared the mechanics of the tongue movements of the chameleon and the salamander for one of the first times, finding that both reptiles’ tongues work similarly to a slingshot, snapping forwards then backwards to snatch prey.

“They have actually never met each other in the wild,” said Yu Zeng, a study author and researcher at the University of South Florida, according to a press release, though they still “evolved the same architecture in their bodies to fire their tongues at high speed.”

Analyzing videos of chameleons and salamanders side-by-side, the study authors showed that these reptiles use the same mechanism to shoot out their tongues. Squeezing the muscles around the tiny, tapered bone imbedded inside their tongue, they send their tongue outside of their mouth, sometimes at a speed of as many as 16 feet per second, seizing their prey with their tongue’s sticky tip.

“What’s surprising,” Zeng added in the release, “is that they achieve this using the same ordinary tissues, tendons, and bone that other vertebrates have.”

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A Slingshot System

Zeng, a specialist in biomechanical systems, has studied the movements of insects and other animals in the past, whose mechanics can also inspire modern technologies. This new study therefore adds to that work, with the motion of chameleons and salamanders having potential applications for the health and explorations of humans.

“This mechanism can be scaled up or down, using soft or flexible materials,” Zeng said in the release. “We’re already talking with engineers about possible biomedical applications, like devices that could clear blood clots. On a larger scale, it could inspire tools to retrieve objects in hard-to-reach places like a collapsed building or even grabbing debris in outer space.”

According to the study authors, future research in chameleons and salamanders will reveal other aspects of their tongue movement, including more information on the retraction of their tongues. Meanwhile, other work on the motion of other animals will continue to provide inspiration for other important technologies.

“It is gratifying to have a unifying story about these amazing tongues, as well as potential engineering applications after so many years of focusing on the biology of these animals,” added Stephen Deban, another study author and professor at the University of South Florida, according to the release. “Nature has already solved these problems, now we’re learning how to adapt those solutions for us.”

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