BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhuanet) -- When it comes to the muscle with the most instantaneous power known in the animal kingdom, a new study reveals the tongue of Central America's giant palm salamander wins, hands down.

Bolitoglossa dofleini, can ejectits tongue with 18,000 watts of power per kilogram of muscle, almost twice the powerof former No.1 Colorado River toad Bufo alvarius.

Bolitoglossa canhurl its tongue more than half its body length in about 7 milliseconds, or about 50 times faster than an average eye blink.

Stephen Deban of the University of South Florida and his colleagues used high-speed video cameras and electrodes implanted in the salamanders’tongue muscles to monitor the animals as they launched at live crickets.

The findings showed the tongues shot outwardmuch faster than could be achieved only by muscle contraction.

The researchers thinkstill unidentified elastic tissue attached to the salamander's tongue stores up energy in preparation for an explosive action.

Debansays the process is similar to stretching and shooting a rubber band: the recoil occurs faster than the act of releasing a rubber band pulled taut.

"The amount of energy doesn't change; it's just released faster," Deban told LiveScience.

It still not clear howthe salamander achieves its record. Tongue-launching systems in other animals require three components: a motor to generate energy, a spring to store the energy and a latch to control the timing of unloading of the spring.

Scientists have so far identified only the motor in the salamander system.

"What remains to be discovered are the anatomical structures that make up the spring and the latch," the researchers write in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

(Agencies)