Snake Tongues – Debunking the Myths

Dating all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, you can find stories about snakes. Most of these stories in some way or another mention the snake’s tongue. Why the fascination with the tongue of the snake? Well, it could be the almost hypnotic way that they snake flickers it in and out of their mouths. There is something mysterious and dangerous about the way it looks too – forked down the middle and all. It looks ominous to be sure. The stories eventually led to legends and myths about the snake tongue and even today many people believe them.

The funniest myth about snake tongues is that they are venomous or poisonous. Legend has it that they are trying to stab or touch you with their tongue to stab you with one or both of the “forks” of their tongue. This legend is silly as the snake has no venom in their tongue. The tongue is soft like a humans, so they would have a tough time with injection. Venom, for those snakes that are venomous, is delivered through fangs during a bite.

Another common myth is that snakes feel their way around with their tongue. While this is not true, it has elements of truth. The snake does use their tongue to pull chemical elements such as is left by a prey animal out of the air. They then take their tongues back inside their mouths and it retracts into sheaths. The forks of the tongue insert into the Jacobson’s organ and sends the messages back to the brain and senses. This organ is named after the person that discovered it in snakes. The tongue is not, however, used like some snake blind stick to see if they are about to bump into something by touch. It is one of many senses used to track and eat prey items.

Perhaps the silliest myth I have seen for a snake’s tongue is that it is used as a weapon. I actually found some posts that said they use it to whip smaller animals and wrap them up to keep them from escaping. This one is so ludicrous that I am not going to grace it with explanation of why it is wrong.

The oldest myth about snake tongues is that they are magical. Old witch brews were loaded with them along with rat tails and various other silly nonsense. In the early days of the 1800’s, rich people kept them as a staple in the medicine cabinet. This was during the days when the snake tongue was considered venomous, and the venom supposedly had healing powers. Ironically, they were right in that snake venom may have healing powers, but they were totally wrong about where the venom was located. Seems hard to understand when they would see the fangs of a snake to think that the venom would be delivered any other way, but we were slow to learn the truth.