The mechanism of a chameleon's tongue is analogous in some sense to a catapult. Stored energy is released when the tongue is "fired", reaching prey at a distance longer than the length of the chameleon's body in 0.7 seconds, at a speed of about 6 m/s. The chameleon elongates its sticky tongue at accelerations near 50 G (∼500 ), with a power as great as 3000 W/kg. The very rapid change in speed is produced by accelerator muscles that contract against the hyoid horn (blue arrows) to make them extend forward (red arrow). A simple model based on the shooting of a cherry pit has been proposed [1] using just Newton's second law.