The New International Encyclopædia/Langaha

LANGAHA, lȧn-gä'hȧ (Malagasy name). A brown tree-snake (Dryophis langaha) of Madagascar, about three feet long, having a prolonged, scaly snout, often flattened into a leaf-like organ half an inch in length. That it uses this purely as a tactile organ seems doubtful, as it is simply a tree-snake, with no hindrance to the ordinary use of the tongue. Some related snakes, like Trigops (see Tree-Snake), have similar fleshy tips; and one, Herpeton (q.v.), has two distinct tentacles; but this species is aquatic, and such tentacles would usefully serve the purpose of the tongue, not easily protrusible in the water. Stejneger believes that these appendages serve mainly to increase the opening of the mouth, and thus assist the snakes in capturing prey, as do the bristles about the mouth of fly-catching birds.