bobbymike said:
First successfully produced and deployed hypersonic weapon could be called the 'Chameleon' as some of these have animals apparently have hypersonic tongues
http://blog.therainforestsite.com/cs-chameleon-tongues-brown/?utm_source=trs-arsfan&utm_medium=social-fb&utm_term=031516&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=cs-chameleon-tongues-brown&origin=trs_arsfan_social_fb_link_cs-chameleon-tongues-brown_031516
the Rhampholeon spinosus shoots its tongue out of its mouth at a whopping 8,500 feet per second. That amounts to going 0 to 60 miles per hour in 1/100th of a second, with a speed 264 times the force of Earth's gravity.
Seems people are having trouble telling speed from acceleration.
8,500
feet per second squared acceleration does not equal 8,500
feet per second speed.
If the chameleon could somehow keep accelerating its tongue for an entire second at the same rate, it would reach 8,500 feet per second in speed. Luckily for physics (and the chameleon), it can only manage to sustain that acceleration rate for a few milliseconds, and so its tongue does not hit hypersonic velocities. The power it would take to sustain the acceleration for a whole second would probably require the chameleon to be nuclear powered
Funnily enough, the salamander has this record beaten by some margin, hitting 458g acceleration. Go the amphibians.
So, in conclusion, small chameleons can shoot their tongues out faster than big ones, but neither can beat the salamander. None of the three have hypersonic tongues.
Rehashing and rewording stories the person sharing doesn't understand. "Journalism" today.