Morphological and scanning electron microscopic studies of the tongue of the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) and their lingual adaptation for its feeding habits

This study was carried out on the tongues of 12 adult normal healthy Egyptian fruit bats of both sexes. The tongue is protrusible, elongated flat with a rounded apex and its wide and thickness increase gradually toward the lingual root. There are four types of lingual papillae; two mechanical and two gustatory. The tongue divided into three parts (anterior, middle and posterior), each part subdivides into three regions; two lateral regions and median region, in addition to the lingual apex to the anterior region. The lingual papillae close to the median region of the tongue were posteriorly directed toward the pharynx, while theses present on the lateral regions of the tongue are directed medioposteriorly. There are sex subtypes of the filiform papillae; three on the anterior part (small, conical and giant), two on the middle part (cornflower and leaf-like papillae) while the posterior part contain rosette shape filiform papillae, in addition to transitional papillae and conical papillae. Two gustatory papillae represented by; small number of fungiform papillae which scattered among the filiform papillae on lingual apex and two lateral regions of the anterior and middle part of tongue, while the three circumvallate papillae on the posterior part were arranged in a triangle form.