A woodpecker's tongue is so long it cannot fit in the mouth. It rides on a bone-and-cartilage rig built around the hyoid bone, looping around the back of the skull up to the forehead or even the nostrils. Up to a third of the bird's length, it also stiffens the skull during each peck.

The northern blue-tongued skink's tongue does more than look blue — it strongly reflects ultraviolet light, with the rear reflecting roughly twice as much as the front. Normally camouflaged, it gapes its mouth at predators to flash the UV-bright rear in a deimatic display.

Hummingbirds do not draw nectar through capillary action — their tongue is a fluid trap. The forked tip opens when it touches nectar and snaps shut as the tongue retracts, scooping up liquid in the process. The finding overturned a century-old textbook explanation.

Crocodiles cannot stick their tongue out — it is fixed to the mouth floor by a membrane. The anchored tongue acts as part of the gular valve: tongue below, throat fold above, sealing the airway so water cannot enter when the mouth opens underwater.

The smallest chameleon, Rhampholeon spinosus, fires its tongue at 264g — 264 times gravity. F-16 pilots feel about 7g; the Space Shuttle reaches roughly 3g. The trick is not muscle but elastic energy stored in collagen sheaths around the hyoid bone and released like a slingshot.