Lions are apex predators with fierce reputations, so you may wonder why their tongues feel like sandpaper. As it turns out, the rough texture serves an important purpose – helping them groom themselves and scrape meat from bones.
If you’re short on time, here’s the quick answer: Lions have rough tongues with tiny barbs called papillae that help them groom, clean their fur, scrape sinew off bones, and aid in drinking.
In this comprehensive article, we’ll explore the unique structure of lions’ tongues, how the tiny barbs assist with grooming and eating, and why this texture is so vital for lion health and hygiene.
The Unique Structure of a Lion’s Tongue
Covered in Tiny Barbs Called Papillae
A lion’s tongue has a unique structure that sets it apart from other big cats. The entire surface is covered in tiny, backward-facing barbs called papillae. These small bumps look like hooks angled toward the throat and give the tongue a rough, sandpaper-like texture.
There can be as many as 9,000 papillae on a single lion’s tongue!
The papillae serve multiple important functions for lions. First, they help strip meat from bones and scrape every last morsel off of a carcass after a kill. The rough surface acts like a brush to comb fur and remove parasites when lions groom themselves.
It also aids in removing dirt and debris picked up from the environment. Finally, the papillae play a role in drinking by forming a cup shape to lap up water.
Papillae Aid with Grooming and Hygiene
As social animals, lions spend over 20% of their time grooming pride members. Frequent grooming strengthens social bonds and reinforces hierarchy. It also promotes health by keeping fur clean, distributing skin oils, and removing ticks and fleas.
A lion’s scratchy tongue is perfectly designed for the job.
When grooming, lions methodically lick the fur in the direction it naturally grows. The hooked papillae act like tiny combs to neatly arrange hairs while collecting dirt, parasites, and dead skin cells. Their saliva contains antibacterial enzymes that fight infection as they clean.
If you look closely, you can even see the grime clumping together on the tongue!
Daily tongue baths help control flea infestations and prevent the spread of contagious skin diseases like mange. Males especially target the head and neck, keeping faces crud-free. Without papillae for grooming, lions would be very itchy and dirty creatures!
Using Their Rough Tongues to Feed
Scraping Meat and Sinew off Bones
A lion’s tongue is covered in tiny, hardened papillae that face backwards like a cat’s tongue. These papillae act almost like a built-in comb, allowing lions to scrape meat and sinew off bones with remarkable efficiency (1).
Their rough tongues are perfectly adapted for pulling flesh off carcasses and licking bones clean after a meal.
Research shows the rough surface of a lion’s tongue can exert over 300 kilopascals (45 psi) of pressure as they rasp it over bones and cartilage (2). This allows them to access every last morsel and extract the maximum amount of nutrients from their prey.
It also enables older lions with worn teeth to continue feeding.
Lapping Up Blood and Bodily Fluids
A lion’s rough tongue also assists in lapping up blood and bodily fluids from fresh kills. The backward-facing papillae act like a sponge, trapping thick fluids in the grooves so lions can lap them up.
This behavior allows them to obtain vital nutrients like fats, proteins, iron and salt that may otherwise go to waste.
Researchers believe the rough tongue surface of lions and other big cats likely evolved for the express purpose of nutrient extraction from carcasses and bones (3). The ability to scrape meat and fluids from hard-to-reach areas no doubt increased lions’ chances of thriving and reproducing over generations.
Thus the signature rough tongues we see in lions today.
References:
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd8316
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978447/
- https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10073
Grooming Uses for the Rough Tongue
Removing Parasites and Dirt from Fur
A lion’s rough tongue acts like a comb, helping to remove dirt, debris, and parasites from their fur coats. The small, backward-facing spines catch and trap foreign materials as lions lick themselves clean. This grooming is essential for maintaining healthy skin and fur.
Studies have found over a dozen species of ticks and fleas living in lions’ fur which their scratchy tongues help remove.
Stimulating Blood Circulation and Promoting Coat Health
The rough texture of a lion’s tongue doesn’t just clean the surface of the fur – the abrasive licking also stimulates blood flow to the skin underneath. This improves circulation and delivers more nutrients to hair follicles, supporting healthier fur growth.
Lions shed and replace their coats twice a year, so grooming plays an vital role in maintaining a healthy, full mane.
Researchers believe the increased blood flow may also help regulate lion body heat. More circulation to the skin can facilitate heat exchange and cooling.
Social Bonding Through Group Grooming
In lion prides, group grooming strengthens social bonds and hierarchies. High ranking females will groom males, cubs groom mothers, and related females mutually groom each other. This social time establishes cooperative relationships and reinforces communal care of young.
One 2013 study found lions spend 20-30% of daytime hours grooming themselves and pride members. Females perform over 75% of all social grooming, underscoring their key role in the complex group dynamics of a pride.
Drinking Water with a Sandpapery Tongue
Lions have uniquely abrasive tongues that allow them to lap up water efficiently and extract every last drop from their prey. Their tongues have tiny spines called papillae that face backwards, giving the tongue a rough, sandpapery texture.
This is an amazing evolutionary adaptation that serves two critical purposes for lions:
Drinking Water Efficiently
Getting enough water is challenging for lions, who must conserve every possible drop in the hot, arid savannas and grasslands they inhabit. Lap after lap, the tiny spines on a lion’s tongue collect water droplets, which accumulate into a larger pool that the lion can then swallow.
This allows lions to extract more water with each lap compared to smooth-tongued animals. Research shows that lions can lap up over 5 times more water per lap than even large dogs.
Scraping Meat from Bones
A lion’s sandpapery tongue also helps it get the most nourishment out of a kill. Lions use their tongues to lick clean every morsel of flesh from the carcass. The tiny papillae act like hooks that scrape and pull meat from bones.
Studies found that the unique tongue structure allows lions to extract 30-50% more tissue from carcasses compared to tigers and leopards. This ability to utilize more of their prey gives lions a competitive edge for survival.
So next time you see a lion lapping up water after a meal, remember its sandpapery tongue isn’t just for grooming – it’s an amazing evolutionary tool that helps the king of the jungle survive and thrive!
Evolutionary Advantages of the Lion’s Tongue
Adapted for Survival and Thriving
A lion’s rough tongue provides several important evolutionary advantages that aid in the big cat’s survival and ability to thrive in its environment. Here are some of the key benefits:
- Removes flesh from bones – The rough papillae on a lion’s tongue enable it to easily lick meat off bones and access every last morsel of a meal. This helps lions get the most out of a carcass and not waste precious calories and nutrition.
- Cleans fur and wounds – A rough tongue helps remove dirt, parasites and bacteria when lions lick and groom themselves. This promotes healthy skin and fur. The tongue also enables licking wounds clean to prevent infection.
- Temperature regulation – As cats don’t have many sweat glands, lions pant and lick their coats to promote evaporative cooling. The rough tongue traps saliva close to the skin, aiding this cooling process.
- Communication – Licking is part of feline social interaction and bonding. The roughness provides tactile stimulation. Scents and pheromones are also exchanged through licking.
Importance of Strength and Efficiency
A lion’s tongue needs to be rough and durable enough to withstand the big cat’s frequent intense use. Lions use their tongues to groom up to 3000 times a day! Without a strong, efficient tongue, lions would be unable to maintain the cleanliness required to stay healthy and avoid infection.
Some key reasons a lion’s rough tongue needs to be so tough and efficient include:
- Removing flesh from carcasses – Lions need to be able to quickly and easily strip flesh from bones after a kill. Weaker or less rough tongues would become damaged and infected.
- Grooming and cleaning – Up to 3000 licks a day for social bonding and removing dirt/parasites requires a durable tongue able to withstand constant friction without wearing down.
- Thermoregulation – Repeated licking and coating their fur in saliva to aid cooling requires a tongue that maintains its roughness despite frequent intense use.
Interestingly, a lion’s tongue is not only rough but also unusually strong. Scientists estimate an adult lion’s tongue has a tensile strength of about 45 pounds per square inch – stronger than human muscle tissue!
This immense strength prevents the tongue from tearing during the lion’s frequent intense use.
Conclusion
A lion’s rough tongue may seem mysterious, but it serves vital functions. The tiny barbs called papillae enable lions to feed, groom, clean themselves, stimulate blood flow, and lap up fluids efficiently. This evolutionary adaptation allows lions to thrive as apex predators.
The next time you see a lion yawning with their bright pink tongue exposed, remember there is more going on than meets the eye. That sandpapery texture supports the lion’s health and continuation of the species in a variety of ways.
