Enhanced Flexibility of the Segmented Honey Bee Tongue with Hydrophobic Tongue Hairs.

Fibrous surfaces in nature have already exhibited excellent functions that are normally ascribed to the synergistic effects of special structures and material properties. The honey bee tongue, foraging liquid food in nature, has a unique segmented surface covered with dense hairs. Since honey bees are capable of using their tongue to adapt to possibly the broadest range of feeding environments to exploit every possible source of liquids, the surface properties of the tongue, especially the covering hairs, would likely represent an evolutionary optimization.