WHEN you think of a giraffe, its towering height, long neck and distinctive patchwork coat probably come to mind.
But there is another unusual feature that tends to catch people off guard: the colour of its tongue.
So, is the tongue of one of the world's tallest animals really purple?
Verdict:
TRUE
Giraffes do indeed have unusually dark-coloured tongues, although purple is just one way to describe what is actually a striking mix of blue, black and dark purple.
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation says a giraffe's long, prehensile tongue can measure around 45 to 50 centimetres, roughly 17 to 19 inches, making it longer than the average human forearm.
The dark colouring is caused by melanin, the same pigment responsible for colour in the skin, hair and eyes of many animals, including humans.
According to Washington State University, melanin-producing cells distribute protective pigment into surrounding skin cells to shield the underlying DNA from ultraviolet damage, and it is the same process that causes human skin to darken in the sun.
The leading theory is that the high concentration of melanin in a giraffe's tongue evolved as a form of sun protection.
Giraffes can spend up to 16 to 20 hours a day feeding, with their tongues exposed to full sun for much of that time, making UV protection a plausible evolutionary advantage, according to the LA Zoo.
The base of the tongue, which stays tucked inside the mouth, is pink, precisely the pattern you would expect if pigmentation tracks sun exposure.
However, scientists are not fully settled on sun protection as the only explanation.
The giraffe's closest living relative, the okapi, also has a dark tongue despite spending most of its life in the dense rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where prolonged sun exposure is not a concern.
Whether the trait is inherited from a shared ancestor or serves some other purpose remains an open question, and researchers are still working to understand it.
What is not in doubt is the colour itself: photograph a giraffe mid-browse, and that tongue looks almost too vivid to be real.
Sources:
https://giraffeconservation.
https://askdruniverse.wsu.edu/
https://lazoo.org/explore-
