A puffin has two adaptations that enable it to take several fish at once: a modified tongue and a series of spines on its upper palate.
A puffin's tongue is mostly fleshy, but the end section is very rough and coarse, which helps the bird to contain its slippery prey. Once it has grabbed a fish, a puffin uses its tongue to push the prey against the spines above, enabling it to seize more fish without losing those it has already caught.
- Guide to British seabirds: how to identify and where to see them
- These adorable -and sometimes comical -puffin photos provide intimate insights into their captivating life on Skomer Island
A puffin's tongue is actually a cross between the larger, rigid tongue of a guillemot (which provides effective leverage for holding individual, bulky prey items) and the fleshy tongue of a little auk (which is better suited to handling small organisms). This design gives the puffin great flexibility in its diet - it eats mostly fish in summer, but smaller items, such as crustaceans, during the winter.
The number of fish a puffin can carry depends on their abundance and size. In the UK, 5-20 is the norm, but the record is 61 sandeels and a rockling.
The belief that the fish are all arranged with heads and tails neatly alternating on each side is, rather sadly, a myth.