Fact 13: A Snake Tongue Is Useless For Drinking Water
The snake tongue is useless when it comes to drinking water, and snakes do not have hands. Then how are snakes supposed to drink water?
It’s a myth that they get all the water they need from their food, but that’s not true. Water is essential to snakes, so they drink a lot of it.
With a useless tongue and no other appendages to help them drink water, how do they even manage?
In order to drink water, snakes do not lap it up like other animals. Due to their small tongues and protective sheaths, their tongues cannot carry out this task.
A snake drinks water in a different way than a lizard, bird, or mammal. To consume water, snakes use sponge-like actions.
To swallow whole prey, snakes open their mouths wide, causing their skin creases in their lower jaws to expand. The same creases on their skin are used to drink water.
Snakes drink water by lowering their jaws into water, which allows the loose tissue to absorb the water like a sponge. It uses the same muscles that push food down its throat to push the moisture out of the creases and down its throat once the “sponge” is saturated.
