Many fish do indeed have human-looking teeth (some of those images are photoshopped, of course, [and some aren’t even fish], but I think most of them are genuine).
OK, then, as I said, lots. In fact the vast majority of animals, basically anything that is not a vertebrate.
Insects don’t have conventional tongues since their mouths are basically like the upper end of an esophagus. They masticate their their food externally. This, apart from the blood suckers.
At the bottom of what page?
Searching on basihyal I get only one reference that links it to “fish” tongues and that speaks of sharks. Since (most?) bony fishes are more closely related to us than to sharks I’m not willing to accept the “fish don’t have tongues”-just yet.
In agreement with njtt.
As I understood it, fish don’t have real tongues, but something that sort of looks like one in the same place. I Googled it a bit and most sources are saying fish do have tongues, but I think they might be using an overly liberal definition of “tongue” (“anything we call a tongue”.)
Well that narrows it down!
The majority of animals will not have tongues, because the majority of animals are insects and worms and other invertebrates.
Incidentally, Cecil wrote a column answering the question “Do all mammals have tongues?” in what was probably his shortest answer ever.
Ok. Are there any invertebrates that have a tongue?
In the absence of any better information I am going to wager all vertebrates have a tongue - some internal mouth appendage that assists in swallowing and/or has chemical sensors (taste).
There! Two challenges. Any takers on either?
I am torn on which is more nightmarish: the parasite that replaces a tongue, or the fish with human teeth. I see a SyFy original movie in the works for Halloween.
Oops, sorry, guess I forgot the link. Bottom of this page.
From the linked article (bolding mine):
“Pacu uses its teeth mainly to crush nuts and fruits, but sometimes they also eat other fish and invertebrates. They usually eat floating fruits and nuts that drop from trees in the Amazon, and on a few occasions were reported to attack the testicles of male swimmers mistaking them to be floating nuts. This has earned them the name of “ball-cutter” after they castrated a couple of local fishermen in Papua New Guinea. So when the fish was spotted in a few odd lakes in Denmark and later in Washington, New Jersey and Illinois last year, a mild panic ensued.”
I’ve seen small sharks while surfing and they didn’t worry me much; but I think I’ll pass on swimming with these guys. :eek:
It looks like almost all tetrapods have tongues. The fish tongue is not muscular, so not quite the same thing. It makes sense though, fish don’t need tongues so much as an aid to eating, it’s quite a bit more useful for animals eating out of the water.
I have no cite, but I recall that story going around some months ago, and it turned out to be a joke or hoax.
Sure.
Of course, the organs used are not homologous, so they are not technically tongues. However, mollusks have an organ called a radula that serves the same function.
Some frogs lack tongues. There are probably a few others.
Reading Wiki, it seems that fish have a fleshy process in the base of their mouth, but it is not muscular, and is therefore not a tongue in terms of the organ’s function and capability.
I had wondered if there were any mammals without tongues, But Cecil’s lengthy explanation convinced me there weren’t. I learned long ago assumptions are dangerous in science, You could list 200 mammals with confirmed tongues and someday would say, “what about x?”. Nature can be unpredictable just when you think you understand it.