Bats can change their tongue shape with blood

(Brownt.tv) - Brown University scientists have found that a species of bat uses its blood to reshape its tongue while eating. This fast and dynamic action makes their tongue more effective when licked nectar and this can inspire new industrial designs.

Bats that eat nectar and busy housekeepers have at least two things in common: They want to wipe the fastest liquid they can do, and have specialized equipment to do the job. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes, an unexplored technology used by bats Glossophaga soricina : a tip used to store The amount of blood to erect the hair-like structures exactly at the right time so that the bat can lick more nectar from a flower.

The technique of "lick of blood kinetics" , as in the article naming the tongue, has features of speed and accuracy that industrial designers must envy, the study's lead author. , Cally Harper, graduate student of the Department of Evolutionary and Ecological Biology at Brown University, said. Harper thinks the bat's tongue is surprisingly flexible.

'Normally, the hydraulic structures in nature tend to slow down like the starfish legs . ' Harper said. 'But the bats of these bats are actually very quick because the vascular system erects the papillae of hair (hairs) embedded within a hydrostatic body, continuous block-like structures like blades. , elephant taps and ink tentacles ".

In other words, the bat's tongue has a network of muscle fibers that can help the tongue become thin and longer, (helping them stick their tongue into the flower to lick more honey). The article said that the contraction of muscles has forced blood into small hair-like hairs on the bat's tongue.

When the blood is pushed to the tip of the tongue, these hairs form up to form a right angle to the grid axis. In their erection, they increase the contact surface area and the width of the tongue, increasing the efficiency of collecting the nectar of the tongue.

The whole expansion and contraction of the tongue only occurs within 1/8 second. Leaving the body suspended while licking the nectar consumes a lot of energy, so the nectar-eating bats need to collect a large amount of calories in such a short time to make this calorie collected valuable.

Scientists knew about the hairs before the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but they had always thought that the hairs were passive like wires on a mop. The recent knowledge of other scientists, about the mechanism of hummingbird's tongue makes Harper take a closer look at the bat's tongue-shaped shape, and how it works during the collection process. floral honey.

In detailed anatomical studies, Harper can observe clear circuit connections between the main arteries and veins of the tongue and the hairs. In experiments, co can make them erect by pumping in salt water.

But the color videos of nectar-eating bats, while challenging to create, are really convincing. Harper said.

'It's one of my favorite parts in research - Aha moment , ' she said. 'We shoot high-speed color videos of nectar-eating bats, which is a challenge because color cameras require a lot of light, but bats don't particularly like light'.

But along with professors and co-authors Beth Brainerd and Sharon Swartz, Harper figured out how to focus a lot of the right light at the tip of the bat's head without even penetrating any light into its eyes.

What Harper then observed was that when the hairs on the tongue widened, there was a light changing from pink to bright red as they were filled with blood.

Harper said, she was not sure whether other nectar-eating bats had the same hairs activated by blood as their observations. The author speculates that honey-fed mammals may also have such texture blades.

Other species such as hummingbirds and bees use different techniques of tongue to improve nectar.

The research is funded from a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation No. 1052700 and 0723392 (National Science Foundation).