ok so snakes don’t need to lick things to smell them- they just need to put their tongues out. imagine crowley sniffing something new (like Aziraphale’s new cologne) and the human nose being insufficient, he just wanders around with his tongue out, looking like an idiot, until he finds the source of the smell.
For best smell-finding, bleleleling is important. So he’d probably be doing that.
Yes. Excellent addition. You are hired.
When the new cologne is a good one:
When the new cologne is Not Good:
The tongue itself also isn’t the receptor for scent, it had to be drawn back into the mouth to basically wipe the scent molecules off on their Jacobson’s organ. So he’d be walking around sticking his tongue out, doing the blelelele, and then putting his tongue back in for consideration. Over and over.
Blelelele
Okay I have to come back here because I was half asleep the first time and I have more to say because I’ve talked a lot about wings and birds and now you’re gonna hear about snakes.
Everyone should know that snake tongues aren’t hanging out inside their mouths the way a human’s does, there’s a special opening under their glottis (the hole thing in their mouth that they breathe through) which hides their tongue entirely. I dug around so you could see the two different bits:
What I’m saying is that the reason snakes can swallow prey that takes a long time to swallow whole is that they aren’t blocking their trachea (the hole that is the glottis connects to the trachea), because the glottis sits at the front and bottom of their jaw and is kind of floppy such that it just gets pushed to the side a bit to let them keep breathing through it as needed. Turns out you can put a lot of big things in your mouth if you don’t have to worry about it blocking your breathing tube. I’m just gonna leave that here for no reason.
In additional knowledge for the day, the jacobson’s organ (also known as the vomeronasal organ) is located on the roof of the mouth. Interestingly, snakes are not the only ones who have one! Ever seen a cat sniff something and then make that Face? You know the one.
That’s called the flehmen reaction, and it’s basically a way for them to get All The Scent quickly to their vomeronasal organ. They go dazed for a few seconds because when they get that much scent at once, they’re suddenly left with a TON of information to process (like WAY more than a human, they have receptors we should envy), and their brain does what your computer does when you give it too many tasks- it prioritizes and does the Important ones first.
Interestingly, humans ALSO have a vomeronasal organ, but ours is vestigial. But there’s no reason why Crowley’s would be, given he is, at least in part, a snake.
So, what I would like for you to imagine Crowley, with his snakey anatomy helping his humanish anatomy along, walking around doing the blelelele the way a snake would, until he finds the scent, and then doing the mammal open-mouth version of sniffing and just. face going slack, mouth hanging open, eyes going blank as he just blue-screens while he processing what he’s sniffed.
There are two types of people in the world: those who react to learning that you can use touch screens with your tongue with disgust and those who immediately go to lick their phones.
i’m gonna go ahead and assume that the reason this doesn’t have many notes is because you’re all too busy making out with your phones
Where does your tongue stay when you’re not speaking? If you’re an English-speaker, it’s behind the top front teeth. If you’re a Russian-speaker, it’s on the bottom of your mouth, lying flat.
