Tongue Facts for Kids – 5 Treasure Facts about the Tongue

Do you like eating ice cream?! Let’s learn five treasure tongue facts for kids.

Tongue Facts for Kids Fact Number 1: The Tongue Is The only Muscle in The Body not Connected on Both Sides

The tongue is only connected to our body at one end, which is why we can stick our tongue out. The tongue is made this way to help us do a lot of essential things. Our tongue helps us eat, we are able to use our tongue to get to food which may be inside a shell or rind. Our tongues movements also help us speak. We can make complex sounds by moving our tongue around and creating different shapes.

Tongue Facts for Kids Fact Number 2: Your Tongue Has over 2000 Taste Buds

Your taste buds are what allow you to taste things from the world around you. When you eat food there are between 2000 and 4000 taste buds on your tongue which tell your brain what the flavour is like. We often taste the salt in foods first because salt dissolves in saliva quickly and so our taste buds can tell it is there first. All the taste buds in our mouth renew once a week, which is why if you bite your tongue it heals quickly. Our taste buds are designed to keep us healthy, as food which is rotten or poisonous will taste bad so we don’t want to eat them.

Tongue Facts for Kids Fact Number 3: Some Animals Use Their Tongue to Catch Prey

Animals such as frogs and lizards can have very long tongues which they use to hunt for food. A frog’s tongue is around one third the size of its body and it can move very fast. A frog can move its tongue five times faster than humans can blink. The frog creates a sticky mucus on its tongue and then shoots the tongue out of its mouth to catch flies and other insects.

Tongue Facts for Kids Fact Number 4: Your Tongue Is Unique just Like Your Fingerprint

The markings on your fingers are called your fingerprint and they can be used to identify you, this is commonly used to unlock phones and computers. Your tongue is also unique to you and it has a specific print which can identify you. Just like no two fingerprints are the same, no two tongue prints are the same. Scientists are trying to develop ways to use tongue prints as a way to identify people but I don’t think we will use our tongues to unlock our phones.

Tongue Facts for Kids Fact Number 5: In Tibet Sticking out Your Tongue Is a Form of Greeting

When you stick out your tongue it can be seen as rude or mean, which is why you might be told off for sticking your tongue out. In Tibet, the gesture of sticking out your tongue is seen as a way of showing your respect to the person you are talking to. It also is a way of showing you agree with them. Maybe save sticking your tongue out for a trip to Tibet.

We hope you enjoyed learning more things about tongue as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this system in human body is, you can move on to learn about other ones like: Mouth and The Digestive System.

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