Canyou answer this one?

Question

How does a fork tongue on a retile help locate their prey and capture its food thanks

Answer 1

Reptiles like snakes have a special pit in the top of their mouth called a "jacobson's organ". It is part of the brain's olfactory lobe and serves both taste and smell. The snake uses its tongue to pick up odors and then runs it past the jacobson's organ. If any scent molecules are present, the reptile can detect them.

Mammals also have rudimentary jacobson's organs. Unlike reptiles, mammals don't use their tongues, but grimace in what is called a "flemen display". This facial expression exposes the organ, and mammals use it to detect phermones from members of their own species. This is especially helpful to determine when females come into heat and are ready to mate.

Primates lost most of their sence of smell when they began to live in trees. Unlike the forest floor, scent does not linger this far off the ground. This perhaps also explains why birds have hardly any sence of smell, either. Humans are in the process of becomming ground dwelling primates, but because we walk upright, our sence of smell is still very weak. Birds, primates and humans have no jacobson's organ.

FYI: Snakes locate their prey from a distance by smell, but the most evolved ones then rely on special infrared sensors along their lips to pick up the body heat of warm blooded prey. This group of snakes are called pit vipers. Rattlesnakes are good examples.

It might be mammals evolved these sensors to be sensitive to touch instead of heat. In mammals, these structures would be the wiskers. Humans don't have wiskers but extremely sensitive lips. These creatures appear to use facial sensors as part of their sexual display.

Answer 2

Snakes also smell in a very different way than mammals. Mammals bring air particles into contact with the olfactory (smelling) nerves by breathing them into the nasal cavities through the nostrils. Snakes have both nostrils and nasal cavities, but they are not used to smell. Instead, the flicking tongue is actually a smelling device. There is a small organ on the roof of the oral cavity called the "vomeronasal organ", or "Jacobson's organ." The forked tongue is used to bring minute air particles into contact with this organ, and the snake then perceives and identifies the smell as prey, predator, or otherwise. So, unlike mammals, the tongue is not used to taste or aid in swallowing, but simply as an accessory smelling organ.

http://animal.discovery.com/guides/repti...

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