How long is your tongue?
Can you touch your nose? What about your eye? Or your ear?
Okapi (which are forest-dwelling hoofed mammals closely related to the giraffe) have enormously long tongues. They use their tongues to reach leaves high up in the trees and then to grasp and pull down leaves or other bits of food. Also, their tongue is important for grooming and cleaning. The okapi can reach almost every part of it’s body with it’s tongue!
I’ve been helping with some research projects at the zoo, including one large project with the zoo’s half dozen okapi. They’re incredibly interesting to watch, especially when they’re trying to reach something high in the trees (or on the other side of the fence) with their enormously long tongue!
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