Narrow, highly flexible and with a bifid end (a fancy synonym for “splitting in two”), the tongue of these reptiles is used to capture the scents around it. In other words, it can be considered the olfactory organ of ophidians, working as an efficient chemical detector capable of following the trail of odors left by their prey. Moving from side to side, the bipartite tongue also sniffs out pheromones – substances that serve as communication between beings of the same species, mainly for sexual attraction. Because it is divided in two, each end can capture particles in a different region. “Its ends fit into two small cavities in the palate (the roof of the mouth), called Jacobson’s organ”, says biologist Flávio de Barros Molina, head of the Reptiles Sector at the Zoological Park Foundation of São Paulo.
This organ, a sophisticated taste apparatus, is full of nerve endings that detect different chemical substances of an organic nature released by potential prey. This is how snakes identify who is nearby.
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