Cold-blooded snipers: thermal independence of ballistic tongue projection in the salamander Hydromantes platycephalus.

Plethodontid salamanders of the genus Hydromantes capture prey using the most extreme tongue projection among salamanders, and can shoot the tongue a distance of 80% of body length in less than 20 msec. The tongue skeleton is projected from the body via an elastic-recoil mechanism that decouples muscle contraction from tongue projection, amplifying muscle power tenfold. We tested the hypothesis that the elastic-recoil mechanism also endows tongue projection with low thermal dependence by examining the kinematics and dynamics of tongue projection in Hydromantes platycephalus over a range of body temperatures (2-24°C). We found that H. platycephalus maintained tongue-projection performance over the tested temperature range and that tongue projection showed thermal independence (Q(10) values of 0.94-1.04) of all performance parameters including projection distance, average velocity, and peak instantaneous values of velocity, acceleration, and power. Nonelastic, muscle-powered tongue retraction, in contrast, responded to temperature changes significantly differently than elastic tongue projection; performance parameters of retraction displayed thermal dependence typical of muscle-powered movement (Q(10) values of 1.63-4.97). These results reveal that the elastic-recoil mechanism liberates tongue projection from the effects of temperature on muscle contractile rates. We suggest that relative thermal independence is a general characteristic of elastic-recoil mechanisms and may promote the evolution of these mechanisms in ectothermic animals.