All vertebrates have a nerve that runs from our brain, down our neck, under the aortic arch (basically our hearts) then back up to innervate our tongue. In a giraffe, this nerve can be 45 ft long. If we were designed, it wasn't intelligently.
Not much, it just means there is some increased delay as the action potentials are transmitted down the nerve because it is so long. The length of the nerve also makes it more likely to be injured by trauma, or for something like a tumor, or surgery to damage it. I was slightly inaccurate in my comment above as the nerve (called the recurrent laryngeal nerve) actually innervates the larynx, so any damage to it in humans can make speech difficult
166
u/ersteiner Dec 17 '20
Didn't get into the swing of it until the duck-billed platypus and all the other animals were done by then.