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Prehensility is the quality of anappendage ororgan that hasadapted forgrasping or holding. The word is derived from theLatin termprehendere, meaning "to grasp". The ability to grasp is likely derived from a number of different origins. The most common are tree-climbing and the need to manipulate food.[1]
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Appendages that can become prehensile include:
| Hands and feet |
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| Tails |
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| Tongue |
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| Nose | ||
| Lip or lips |
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| Tentacles |
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Prehensility affords animals a great natural advantage in manipulating their environment for feeding, climbing,digging, and defense. It enables many animals, such as primates, to use tools to complete tasks that would otherwise be impossible without highly specialized anatomy. For example,chimpanzees have the ability to use sticks to obtaintermites andgrubs in a manner similar to humanfishing. However, not all prehensile organs are applied to tool use; the giraffe tongue, for instance, is instead used infeeding andself-cleaning.