An efficient nectar mop from Brown University on Vimeo.
I’ve never seen a bat lapping up nectar before, but even if I had I didn’t see it in close up slow motion, and frankly that’s the only way to watch a bat lap up nectar. This video from Brown University shows a species of bat that not only has a crazy long tongue, but it also has lingual papillae which fill with blood and extend from the tongue to create more surface area and pull in more nectar.
Brown University graduate student Cally Harper thinks this bat’s tongue and its lingual papillae can inspire medical technology to create new ways of keeping blood vessels and sections of intestine open and clear during surgery, but at the very least they’ve inspired a weirdly beautiful bat tongue video.
(via Vimeo)
- Uhm… Speaking of bat tongues…
- Here are 50 bats being captured by spiders
- Bat tongues are weird, but duck penises are weirder
