Do Fish have tongues
1- Many fish species do have tongues, although they're different than the muscular mammalian tongues that humans and lots of animals have. A fish tongue is actually an extension of the bottom of the mouth, and a few of the tongues even have small, sharp teeth to assist the fish grasp prey.
Some species of fish with tongues find yourself losing the tongues to invading parasites. Several samples of this occur in various marine fish species. for instance , several species of crustacean parasites take up residence during a fish's mouth and feed off the tongue until it's gone. At that time , the parasite then acts as a kind of pseudo-tongue for the fish and continues to feed off the fish's resources.
What is a Fish Tongue ?
A fish tongue, called a basihyal, may be a bony structure that's positioned on the ground of the mouth. The basihyal does resemble a tongue so if you are doing happen to catch a glimpse of it you'll think that it's a tongue that has an equivalent functions as ours.
However, unlike a mammal’s tongue, the basihyal isn't muscular and doesn't have taste buds, so although it's within the same location as a mammal’s tongue it's indirectly equivalent.
To put it simply, a fish tongue is effectively an extension of the bottom of a fish’s mouth. Scientists believe that the basihyal evolved to guard the ventral aorta which is found on the brink of the mouth of a fish and will potentially become damaged by prey. The ventral aorta is that the artery that carries blood from the guts to the aortic arches.
How do Fish taste food ?
So now that we all know that fish have a tongue but not much of what you would possibly consider it as. Hence, subsequent question to crop up in your mind could be how do they taste food without it ?
So, in my knowledge, fish is additionally called a swimming tongue thanks to the very fact that their whole body works as taste buds for them.
Amazing, right? you recognize , having a body that helps taste the food way before it goes into the mouth.
I know. That’s how astonishing fish are to understand about. they will hear without an ear that doesn't show on the surface and have a tongue that's there but doesn't consists of taste buds or not muscular to maneuver much.
Hence, for you to know the phenomenon better, I’ve listed down some points that further elaborate on how fish taste the food.
Here you go.
Fish can taste food just by bumping into it.
Fish have extremely tiny bumps on their skin that get activated whenever a salty, bitter, or sweet thing touches it.
The protective mucus present in and out of doors the fish body also works as an agent for the taste buds.
Fish can smell food due to amino acids in water so once they cannot see in murky water, the sole savior before gulping it's their taste buds located everywhere the body.
This way, when the food touches the fish, it figures out the taste and consumes it if found favorable.
Having said this, if you've got a fish and next time you offer it food, don't try rubbing it on its body because then it'd feel terrified. Hence, the utmost you'll do is place it near the mouth or barbels (if there are any) and let it do the work more naturally.
Now ! Do Fish have tongues like others animals ?
We can eventually give the cat his tongue, as long as it is a catfish, but are we sure he can give us his own if he doesn't respond? Especially since, it's documented , the animal is notoriously talkative.
So this is often one less use for its possible language.
For the opposite uses of the language common to all or any mammals, fish don't necessarily have a greater use of theirs: salivary swallowing is of no use to them since they need no saliva, and chewing, not far better , since they typically swallow their food in one block.
And for the taste buds, while for us most of them are focused on the tongue, fish have found more original locations: on the barbels round the mouth and even further on the body, allowing them to taste the things at a distance, since water transmits flavors. No got to attend the restaurant, they invented the important nutritious shopping ...
Still, a number of them have a language. Not muscular and comparatively autonomous like ours, but tied to a bone. In short, it doesn't help them much.
2-
So, do sharks have tongues ?
Yes, sharks do have a tongue, known as basihyal. The basihyal is a thick piece of cartilage that is located on the lower part of the mouth. It is pretty useless for most species of sharks except for some such as Carpet sharks, Cookiecutter sharks, and Bullhead sharks.
Cookiecutter sharks that use its tongue to rip apart its prey whereas, in carpet sharks and bullhead sharks, basihyal is used to suck up their prey from a long distance.
Tongue in sharks is basically known as Basihyal. It is just a small generally immovable piece of cartilage found at the lower part of the mouth. It extends from mouth to down up to the chest of the fish where it supports gills and other organs.
Cookiecutter sharks put their wide tongue to rip the flesh out of other fishes.
If you're wondering whether taste buds are present in sharks or not, then let me tell you that, Yes, sharks do have taste buds. In sharks, taste buds aren’t located on their tongue but rather are located on the papillae which are wont to taste the prey before swallowing just to see whether it's edible or not.
There taste buds works differently than ours. Sharks aren't picky when it involves eating. They don’t taste the flesh of fishes but taste buds are literally wont to determine whether the thing is edible or not.
Related Questions
Do dolphins have tongues ?
Yes, dolphins do have tongues that help them in ripping their prey apart to swallow their prey. In baby dolphins, tongue serves the purpose of assisting it to suck the milk from mama dolphin’s nipple.
Do sharks have vertebrates ?
Yes, sharks do have vertebrates, however, their backbone is not made of bone. Instead, it is made up of cartilage.
How Do Parasites Attach Themselves to Fish Tongues ?
The parasitic crustaceans, or isopods, first attach themselves to the fish’s gills. If the tongue is unoccupied the parasite will move from the gills to the tongue. This is where the parasite will consume and replace the tongue.
According to research by Denham Parker of Rhodes University, the tongue-biting isopods start as males but then transform into females when they attach to the fish’s tongue. Then if a male then attaches to the fish’s gills the parasites breed and the female will release fertilized eggs into the water.
Are There Any Animals That Do Not Have Tongues ?
Not all animals have tongues. A few examples of animals that naturally do not have tongues include :
Sea Urchins
Sea Stars
Crustaceans
Pipidae (tongueless frogs)
bite ( Cymothoa exigua ) bites fish in the tongue, but that's just the beginning. It enters through the gills or mouth of the fish. With its legs, it cuts itself into the tongue and begins to suck blood. This is probably very painful for the fisherman. Eventually, the tongue will wither and fall off. This is what really happens now. The tongue biter attaches itself to the stump where the tongue used to sit. The tongue-biter becomes the fish's new tongue.
We take it again precisely so that the ugliness will really sink in. The tongue biter thus destroys the fish's tongue. Then it becomes the fish's tongue. The fish can use it just like any other tongue. This is the only parasite we know of that replaces an entire organ in a way that is functional for the host animal.
Something that is very exciting with the heavy biter is its sex life. Surely you have always longed to learn how to do it? The tongue biter is hermaphrodite. A tongue-biter larva swims into the gills of the fish and develops there into a male. He sucks blood from the gills and bids his time. When another tongue-biter swims into the fish, things happen. The arrival of the second tongue-biter causes the first to change sex. When it has become a female, she crawls up through the fish's neck to its mouth. Now she will start sucking blood from her tongue. That she has five jaws makes bloodsucking quite easy. The other tongue-biter that came to the fish is the male that she will later reproduce with.
This means that only females bite their tongues. The males stick to the gills, except when it's time for mating. Then the male goes to the female and they mate in the fish's mouth (as if everything was not already extremely unpleasant for the fish). The young develop hanging under the female's stomach. When she releases them, no one really knows, but according to a hypothesis, the cubs leave when the host fish is playing with other fish. Then the kids have many hosts to choose from.
When the tongue is eaten, there is not much more for the female to eat. According to marine biologist Rick Brusca, the female does not eat anything when her tongue is "out". She lives on her energy reserves. When the cubs have swum out into the world, the female thinks she is done with her life. She releases the fish's tongue and leaves the fish. She can not swim and will soon die. Sometimes it happens very quickly by the host fish swallowing her. The fish will also die soon, now that it has got rid of its tongue prosthesis.
The fish whose tongue bites destroy is a kind of snapper called Lutjanus guttatus . The tongue-biter also attacks other fish, but in them the tongue-biter sucks blood from the tongue without destroying it. Perhaps the tongue of Lutjanus guttatus is more sensitive and easier to wither.
The sole is found within the warm parts of the eastern Pacific , from the Gulf of California within the north to Ecuador within the south. it's going to be even more widespread than that. A hard-bitten fish was caught outside the united kingdom in 2005, but that fish could have caught the parasite within the eastern Pacific - where the tongue-biter lives - then swam astray.
In Puerto Rico, the tongue-in-cheek was involved during a lawsuit. One woman claimed that she had been poisoned by eating a tongue-bite that was found during a fish. She sued the organic phenomenon that had sold the fish. The court didn't follow her line. Neither heavy bites nor other gray sows are toxic to humans. In some parts of the planet , eating sows is taken into account quite normal.
So the tongue-biter can't poison you. Nor can it parasitize on you. It only affects certain species of fish. the sole thing the tongue biter can do to you is bite, and possibly show up as an unpleasant surprise during a snapper that you simply shall eat.
3- First off, fish can’t talk. Matter of fact, fish can’t really think, either. But here’s the kicker. Fish apparently can’t even feel pain.
That’s the newest from the planet of piscine anatomy, and it’s not without controversy. In fact, it’s turning into an enormous case of international scientific “he said, she said.” At the guts of it all may be a question about how different human animals are from the remainder of the wildlife , and the way we expect about the animals we share a planet with.
Last year, Lynne Sneddon, a professor of animal biology at the University of Liverpool, in England, published a study during which she tried to impress pain in fish. Not just an “owwie,” mind you, but actually “pain” — a sensation of equal parts physical discomfort and emotional suffering usually reserved for creatures with big brains.
Sneddon divided her captive rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) into four groups. One was injected within the snout with bee venom, and another with ethanoic acid . For you fish-and-chips fans with a taste for irony, that’s the acid in malt vinegar. Both are chemicals commonly wont to test pain in laboratory research. a 3rd group was injected with saline as an impact group, to work out if the needle poke was the source of the reaction. The fourth was handled by researchers, but not injected, to rule out the strain of the experiment being the cause.
At the heart of Sneddon’s research was the importance of a group of neurological sensors around the fishes’ mouth called nociceptors. In her research, Sneddon identified 58 of them in the fish’s face and head that were triggered by a chemical, mechanical, or temperature stimulation. These sensors, designed to warn their owner about “noxious stimulation,” are the frontline defenses against repeatedly impaling oneself on sharp objects. They cause an unconscious pulling away from things that damage the body. They’re hard-wired into the hind brain, the central processor of life that controls such things as breathing, circulation, movement, eating, drinking, and involuntary reflexes. Humans have a system very much like this.
“Anomalous behaviors were exhibited by trout subjected to bee venom and acetic acid,” Sneddon says. “Fish demonstrated ‘rocking’ motion, strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals, and the trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips onto the gravel in their tank and on the tank walls. These do not appear to be reflex responses.”
That reaction fulfills a set of criteria for animal suffering, Sneddon says. To make sure, she gave fish morphine to see if they “felt better” after treatment. Sure enough, their respirations slowed and they stop swaying. So that settles it. Fish feel pain.
Not so fast. James Rose of the University of Wyoming Department of Psychology and Department of Zoology and Physiology disagrees. Studying the neurological structure of a fish brain, Rose concludes fish can’t possibly feel pain, even if they display a few suspicious-looking behaviors, because they don’t have the brains for it.
4-
Goldfish don’t have tongues ?
Instead they have a little “bump” on the floor of their mouth that helps them eat.
It can’t move around like a human tongue though.
(And it has no taste buds!)
When you think of a fish, you probably don’t visualize a gap-toothed grin. Odds are you picture a pursed pair of lips swimming in an aquarium. So do fish have teeth under their puckered pouts? If you’re a Wisconsin angler, chances are you already know the answer.
Fish Teeth Exist
All fish have teeth. Specific types of swimmers—like goldfish—hide their pearly whites near the back of their throats. Similar to shark teeth, goldfish lose and replace teeth throughout their lifetime.
Check out some of the most interesting types of fish teeth :
Fish with Human Teeth
Sheepshead Fish
Sheepshead teeth look like just like ours—at least at first glance. They have 2 rows of molars in their lower jaws and 3 rows in their upper jaws. A sheepshead also has incisors at the front of the jaw and grinding teeth in the back of their jaw to expertly pulverize prey. And sheepshead fish steal more than our smiles—they are notorious for stealing bait.
Pacu Fish
A relative of the piranha, pacu teeth are much more square than their biting brothers. Their human-like chompers are due to their diet—pacu fish are omnivores and prefer to eat vegetables.
Northern Pike
Found in many Wisconsin lakes and river, the northern pike is a voracious feeder that finds most creatures – even squirrels – fair game. Pike also lose teeth. Because you are less likely to reel in a northern during the “dog days” of summer, some anglers assume northern pike shed all their teeth at this time. But, worn out or broken teeth are replaced as they are lost by growing new teeth alongside the old ones. The real truth? The northern pike’s food supply peaks in August making them less likely to fall for the bait.
5- The destructive insect is found in the fish gills and remains in it until it kills the fish and causes its death, and when that insect is present, the fish death rate rises sharply, because the insect destroys the fish’s respiratory system, and it may have been - earlier - one of the most important factors causing the phenomenon of fish death in the stream The Nile River.
The Ministry of Environment says that this insect is not often found in Egyptian lakes, but it was spotted some time ago in Lake Qarun, and the environment conducted analyzes on it, and discovered that it settles in fish gills and destroys the fish's organs from head to tail, in addition to that the main habitat of this insect is not Egypt.
Specialized committees to study Lake Qarun .. And the Minister of Environment calls for increasing fish feeding on it
Specialized committees from the Ministry of Environment are currently studying this insect well, but in principle they indicate that Egypt is not a home for this insect, and that it came and settled Lake Qarun years ago, and it was the cause of the death of tons of fish.
In the context, the Minister of Environment, Khaled Fahmy, said in a press statement that he has not yet confirmed the main habitat of this insect, but it is most likely that it moved during research conducted on Lake Qarun and was transported with fish fry.
The environment declares an emergency until the investigation is completed and the cause of the insect entry is known.
Read more about Fishs :
Can Fish See Water ? Do Fish Know They Are in Water ?
Can a Fish Drown ? Can Fish Drown in Water ?
