What in the World is THAT?

I had a little more modeling help last night...from a butterfly. It's kind of amazing what you can see when you get in close. For example, this butterfly had a kind of tonguey thing. At one point it curled up, and I snagged this shot.



What is that thing?



The tonguey thing appeared to be the length of the butterfly's body, or even longer.

All I can say is that lady butterflies must be very happy butterflies.

UPDATE: I figure one of my brilliant readers would just know this off the top of his or her head, but I had to look it up.

"Butterfly proboscises are slender, tubular feeding structures. Culminating in a sharp, beak-like tip, the proboscis works like a straw through which a butterfly drinks its food. When a butterfly finds food, it first unfurls its mouthparts and then zips them together to form a channel. The proboscis is particularly well adapted for reaching into flowers for nectar and for piercing fruit with its sharp tip. When a butterfly is not feeding, it keeps its proboscis curled between its palpi (which are a pair of organs located on the front of an adult butterfly face).