Since the author talks about using the tongue during feeding, we can assume the type of tongue is important to the feeding process. It says in the passage that the nerve cell fibers are not actually stretched, so there is no evidence that it wouldn't be damaged if stretched. There is no mention of the stretching ability of human tongues, but the passage does tell us that damage would occur if this were done. The passage discusses only one type of whale, so we cannot assume that any of this is true of all whales.