Do lizards smell with their tongues?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The sense of smell is so powerful. Without it, we couldn’t sniff out freshly-baked muffins, stinky garbage, or smoky campfires. Some animals use their noses, others use antennae or even their feet to smell. But what about lizards? They have nostrils, but do they use them to smell? We asked lizard researcher Laura Kojima to help us answer this question.

Got a question that you need to make scents of? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help you sniff it out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.
0:03.9	A moment of um. comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Bettina the butterfly. Um,
0:25.0	So the other day, I was at my favorite store, Candace's Candle Emporium. I was on the hunt for something light and refreshing
0:40.9	to set the mood at my new pedal pad. There were so many new scents. Juniper Jasmine,
0:50.5	freshly washed bell pepper, antique rug musk.
0:55.0	How is a butterfly to choose just one?
0:59.0	Naturally, I had to sample them all.
1:03.0	Unlike humans, I don't use my nose to smell because, well, I don't have a nose.
1:10.0	Instead, us butterflies actually don't have a nose.
1:15.1	Instead, us butterflies actually use our antenna to smell,
1:18.6	those boingy little sticks on the top of my head.
1:22.5	Sometimes I use my feet for sniffing, too.
1:24.0	Pretty nifty, right?
1:32.1	So anyway, there I was in Kansas' candle emporium knee deep in a day-old croissant candle when I saw a lizard sampling some candles too. Except this lizard wasn't
1:39.7	sniffing the candles. It was licking the candles. I was quite surprised. Do lizards just like to lick
1:48.7	candles, or does this mean that lizards smell with their tongues? One of our listeners was
1:55.4	wondering the same thing. Let's ask a lizard expert.
2:14.6	Yeah, lizards do smell with their tongue similarly to snakes.
2:19.7	Hi, I'm Laura Kojima. I'm a graduate student at the University of California Davis studying reptile and amphibian management and conservation. They have what's called a
2:25.2	Jacobson's organ and that is on the roof of their mouth. And basically the reason why they use
2:32.0	their tongue and sometimes you'll see fork tongues in certain lizards
2:35.8	or fork tongues and even snakes,
	...

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