Wow, this girl knows how to use her tongue…:
Definitively great tongue work… and she’s got some canine teeth that remember those of a bat!
In the exciting world of animals, this bat has actually the longest tongue relative to its body size in the world:
Photo: Nationalgeographic.com – bat aunora fistulata tongue gene simmons
Who is Gene Simmons?
(Little photo inset) Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz on August 25th, 1949) is an Israeli-born American hard rock bass guitarist, vocalist, and actor. He is best known as ‘The Demon’, his blood-spitting, fire-breathing, and tongue-wagging persona in the hard rock band Kiss. Simmons supposedly contends that he has "never been high, drunk, or smoked in his life."
Gene Simmons’ unusually large tongue has always been an issue of both admiration and questioning. However, according to his autobiography it is a natural trait and not the effect of plastic surgery or any kind of transplant, as several websites suggest. There’s even a 70’s rock rumor, the Kiss bassist had his tongue surgically replaced with a tongue of a cow…
This tube-lipped nectar bat however, has definitively a longer tongue than Gene Simmons.
Anoura fistulata, which is shown lapping sugar water from a tube, has the longest tongue, relative to body length, of any mammal. Scientists have now found out why:
"This bat was just discovered last year, and now we’ve observed a very unique relationship with a local flower," said Nathan Muchhala, a University of Miami Ph.D. student whose team’s findings are to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature. Found in an Andean cloud forest in Ecuador, A. fistulata, also known as the tube-lipped nectar bat, evolved mutually with an extremely long, bell-shaped flower. The nectar bat is now the only animal that can pollinate the flower, because it is endowed with a tongue that retracts into the bat’s rib cage.
By the way, Gene Simmons has some interesting thoughts on America.
He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing on his website:
I’m ashamed to be surrounded by people calling themselves liberal who are, in my opinion, spitting on the graves of brave American soldiers who gave their life to fight a war that wasn’t theirs…in a country they’ve never been to… simply to liberate the people therein.
In a follow-up, Simmons explained his position and wrote about his love and support for the United States:
I wasn’t born here. But I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away… and rescued my mother from the Nazi German Concentration Camps. She is alive and I am alive because of America. And, if you have a problem with America, you have a problem with me.
Whatever…we leave you with this young girl’s cool tongue twister:
Come bat-baby, give me your tongue…!!
😉