Owls have tongues just like we do, but you may not spend much time thinking about the purposes times serve. Like most other body parts, owls have specific adaptations that help it to survive.
In birds, tongue shape is determined by the tongue bone, or hyoid. The shape and structure of the hyoid is different between species, based on their diet. Catching small insects vs live mammals or reptiles the same size as the bird will have very different requirements.
You also have a hyoid bone, though in most mammals it mainly provides support for the surrounding muscles for the tongue and mouth cavity.
Owl tongues are not very strong, and can’t be used to manipulate food. They have mucus membranes to both protect the tongue from getting scratched and to protect against bacteria, and well as to help their food slide down. The tongue is able to retract further back into the skull to also help swallow. A brush like tip helps to grab food passed to the mouth, and backwards facing barbed papillae also direct food down the throat. There is also a V shaped crest at the back of the tongue (keratinized in some species) for the same purpose.
Everything is designed to get food to go in quickly. As owls can’t chew, things need to go down quickly and smoothly and not hang up on the throat, since the swallow bones, feathers, and other things that would definitely be cotoking hazards for other animals.
I couldn’t find anything specific to owls, but birds do have taste buds. Humans have around 10,000, but birds have from 24 (chicken) to 400 (parrot).
Though there is certainly some likelihood of the tongue having an affect on vocalization, it is thought to be limited.
This is the research paper I used for much of this. It’s 24 pages , but mostly pictures. It covers many species of birds other than owls so you can see other fascinating adaptations. It’s written in very easy to understand wording, so it’s not a bad read at all!
What was the most surprising tongue fact for you?
For me it was that owls and people have a tongue bone, and how different they are from each other.
…i didnt even know tongue bones existed, that itself was very surprising.
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Ours is more an anchor point for our tongue and provides a little shelf for it to rest on so we don’t need to hold our tongue up all day, it’s not quite the same as for the birds. We can chew food, so our tongue doesn’t need to work like a little trolley to pull things down to our stomach.
It is also the only bone in our body not connected to another bone!It is the only free floating bone in the human body.Some more hyoid facts from the Wiki:
In woodpeckers the hyoid bone is elongated, with the horns wrapping around the back of the skull. This is part of the system that keeps the brain cushioned and undamaged by the pecking action.
In mammals, the hyoid often determines whether one can roar. If the hyoid is incompletely ossified (for example: lions) it allows the animal to roar, but not purr. If the hyoid is completely ossified (for example: cheetahs), it does not allow the animal to roar, but instead will allow the animal to purr and meow, as seen in house cats (lions, cheetahs and house cats all belong to the family Felidae).
I’m happy I have a small handful of you guys that really like these posts. I don’t begrudge the people that just want cute pics of course, it just makes me extra happy that some of you like getting to know them better as living creatures.
I didn’t know all that much about owls myself until a few months ago when I came to Lemmy. I saw this sub pretty much sitting empty, and it made me feel bad just seeing it empty. So I just started posting pics from my camera, and then I tried to find one or two interesting facts, and it just went from there.
It probably helps I love to learn and have spent most of my life researching and working with data, but the feedback I get from you all is very positive. I was pretty much ready to quit the last of my social media if I didn’t like Lemmy, I’m fairly quiet in person. My job had been really slow this summer, so it gave me a lot of time to do the work on here. I start a new in-person job Monday (I thought I was starting the 1st, so I’ve been extra bored this week), but my new job is 5 min from the park with the 3 owls I posted the other week, and I know of 2 more near my house, so after I get my new schedule down, I may look into seeing if I can volunteer and get some more hands on experience after getting so much factual knowledge.
I’m glad you find it easy to understand the things I share and that you look forward to the next new thing. I feel learning and having a sense of wonder and excitement about knowledge, especially as you get older is so essential. I’ve been lucky to have some very knowledge and patient and understanding people in my life to encourage me to always learn, and I’m happy I can help some of you with that.
I had a pretty crappy year for the most part, and seeing you guys gets happiness from spending time with me here every day had been very important to me.
A website may not be a bad idea. Especially if I start to do things in person. I also thought of that as a way to volunteer also. It was surprising for me to learn all of these rescues are funded by donations, not any kind of funding from state game commissions or federal money. Some states seem to have hardly any resources for injured wild animals at all. It’s really increased my feelings of responsibility and I want to be able to help somehow.
That’s another reason I encourage you so to go see these animals in person and to get attached. Get to know them as real living animals like cats and dogs at there SPCA. Owls are in danger from many of the things we do. The chemicals and poisons we use and the trees we cut down kill so many of them. Trees need to be almost 200 years old before owls can live in them. But most people won’t know that or really care unless they learn to love those animals.
Yikes, rant alarm! Tl;dr Thank you for enjoying these, it means a lot!
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It is also the only bone in our body not connected to another bone!
That’s what English Wikipedia says but other sources claim that it is hung from processus styloideus ossis temporalis using the ligamentum stylohyoideum.
After some further reading and speaking with someone that is currently studying human anatomy, you are correct.
It is indeed attached to the styloid process by the stylohyoid ligament (the same as the Latin parts you named) along with some other muscles and tissue that eventually connects to bone.
This NIH paper says what I meant to say, just in a way that is correct and makes sense. 😅
The hyoid bone is a unique structure in the human body for many reasons. The larynx is an extremely cartilaginous area, except for the sole regional bony structure—the hyoid bone. Famously, the hyoid bone is the only bone in humans that does not articulate with any other bone, but only has muscular, ligamentous, and cartilaginous attachments. Given this peculiarity, it has been described as “free floating”
So there’s no actual joint with another bone, but it is definitely connected.
Thank you for pointing out my goof!
