Gene Simmons, eat your heart out. The nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) boasts a tongue 50% longer than its entire body, a record for all mammals, including 1970s rock stars. At 8.5 centimeters, the tongue is so long that it’s anchored deep inside the creature’s chest cavity rather than at the base of the mouth. The researcher who made the find, reported 7 December in Nature, speculates that the Ecuadorian bat’s tongue evolved to feed from the 8.5-cm-long funnel-like flowers of the Centropogon nigricans plant.
