The _tongue_ is a well-developed organ, usually playing a double part. It
acts as an organ of prehension, especially in such animals as the Giraffe
and the Anteater, where it is long and protrusible beyond the mouth for a
considerable distance. It also carries gustatory organs, which serve for
the discrimination of the nature of the food. Beneath the tongue there may
be a hardish plate, known as the sublingua. This is especially prominent in
the Lemurs, where it projects as a horny structure below the tongue, and
has an independent and free tip. It is supported in some of these animals
by a cartilaginous {62} structure. It is held by Gegenbaur that this organ
is the equivalent of the reptilian tongue, and that in the skeletal
vestiges which it contains are to be found the equivalents of the hyoid
skeletal cartilages which support the tongue in lizards. In this case the
tongue of mammals is a subsequently added structure.