The Morphology and Reciprocation Movement of Honeybee's Hairy Tongue for Nectar Uptake

A honeybee uses its brush-like tongue (glossa) to dip nectar and the setae densely distributed on it can increase the amount of trapped nectar observably. The glossa is often simplified as a cylinder covered by uniformly distributed and vertically erected setae during the drinking process, herein variations of the dimensions together with the erection angles of glossal setae are assumed to be negligible. In this paper, a dynamic model for the glossa retraction phase under the specific erection pattern of glossal setae is established, and the energy saving mechanism is extensively studied by comparing four types of erection patterns. Then the theoretically-optimal configuration, which satisfies the minimum energy consumption, is achieved from the dynamic model. Using the scanning electron microscope and a specially-designed high-speed camera system, we measure the dimensions of the glossal satae and capture dynamics of the hairy glossa in nectar feeding. It is proven that the erection angle of the glossal setae varies along the tongue axis, which shows a high concordance with our theoretically-optimal configuration. Compared with the hypothetical uniform distribution mode of glossal setae proposed by former researchers, we obtain a 16% increase in energy saving from actual erection pattern.