The animal kingdom is filled with all sorts of slimy animals that ooze mucus and saliva for a variety of purposes.
Some starfish have a few centimeters of mucus thick to protect themselves from predators, while hippos secrete a sterilizing "sweat" that changes color to protect them from sunlight.
After reading this, maybe you really want to take a shower.
The rare species pangolin, although it has armor protection, but its long sticky tongue is its secret weapon
Don't look at the pangolin wearing an armor coat and covered with scales made of keratin, but it is a mammal.
There are 8 species of pangolins, 4 in Asia and 4 in Africa.
Sadly, however, the majestic pangolin is difficult to survive, with rapid declines in numbers and 8 species on the brink of extinction. Many people regard pangolin meat as a rare game game, West Africa, Central Africa, Vietnam, and China, have all been popular in this food, but the biggest reason for the rapid disappearance of this animal is that its scales are considered to be very effective traditional medicinal materials.
As a result, pangolins are heavily traded illegally and are the most traded animals in the world.
Again, the medicinal value of the scales can be replaced by other medicines, do not buy and sell illegally, and conservation organizations around the world are working to stop the illegal trade in pangolin scales.
The pangolin's appearance is keratin scales, which sound like nothing but sticky, however, its stickiness is not on the outside, it is on its tongue. It has a very long tongue, how long is it? The longest is 70 cm, even taller than a small hairy child, and its saliva contains particularly viscous compounds.
Such a long tongue, of course, has to do with their diet.
Pangolins feed on ants and termites, their long tongues can penetrate deep into nests and termite mounds, and sticky saliva can stick ants firmly to their tongues, unable to escape.
With this set of biotechnology, pangolins can eat tens of thousands of ants a day.
The miniature dwarf sperm whale not only has a sticky body, but also secretes a viscous syrup
The pygmy sperm whale is a small, very similar animal to the small sperm whale, only 3.3 meters long, in the whale world, it is indeed considered to be a "dwarf" body.
Although they have been found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, scientists rarely observe them directly because of their elusive habits, and almost all scientific discoveries have come from whale carcasses on beaches.
Like most other whales, it is slimy, but it also has a special skill.
When preyed or frightened, pygmy sperm whales release a cloud of reddish-brown sticky material into the water.
This skill, similar to the squid spraying ink, is what scientists call ink or syrup, which is stored in the colon sac, which many believe to be done to confuse predators and prey.
In the early 20th century, scientists initially thought that the reddish-brown "ink" came from squid that was eaten by pygmy sperm whales.
After a long period of research and observation, it was found that this substance was actually ejected from the anus, not from the squid that was eaten, but from a mixture of feces, and the smell was unimaginable.
To date, there have been no chemical analysis reports of syrup in the scientific literature, so exactly what exactly is in the colon sac of a pygmy sperm whale remains a mystery.
Defined by scientists as the "second most smelling substance", would you like to volunteer to study it?
To survive, swiftlets nest with sticky saliva
Most birds either build their nests with twigs, feathers, and other materials, or lay their eggs on bare ground or rocks. However, for swiftlets, these schemes are all a bit difficult to implement because they live in steep vertical caves and there is hardly any material for nesting.
Swiftlets, a small, fast-moving bird, have evolved a very special means of nesting with saliva in order to cope with this living environment.
If we lick a stone for several weeks in a row, the result will only be that the tongue is very sour, but for the female swiftlet, the result is very different. During the breeding season, swiftlets have enlarged salivary glands and increased saliva secretion, and if they keep licking the stones, they can make a nest.
The process usually lasts for a month, and the female sticks saliva to the surface of the rock, and after a few days and months, a teacup-sized nest is built, glued to the wall like a half bowl, and then lays eggs.
Yes, this is the legendary nourishing holy bird's nest, in our country, bird's nest is very popular, boiled in water into a sticky soup can be eaten, the Ming Dynasty began to eat bird's nest, has a history of more than 400 years.
At last
Sticky substances, for us, are also unbearable and disgusting, but for many animals, this is an evolved skill in survival, because for them, surviving is the most important thing, and they don't mind whether it is sticky or disgusting.