• Question: why do giraffes have black tounges?

    Asked by eviehoranball123 to Juan on 8 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by lilyhoranthellama5.
    • Photo: Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez

      Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 8 Mar 2014:

      Hi Evie and Lilly

      I am starting to think that you really like giraffes. I can’t blame you they are great animals.

      It is not well known why giraffes have black tongues, but it is thought that it could be to protect their tongues from getting sunburnt. Giraffes are constantly using their tongues (they use them for eating, reaching their favourite leaves, grooming each other and even to clean up their nostrils!), so they need to have them protected against the scorching African sun.

      In fact, if you look at a giraffe’s tongue, you will see that it is only the front of the tongue that is black (which is the part of the tongue that spends most of the time outside of the mouth), the back of their tongues are pink like our tongues.

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