A 99 million year old amphibian has been found with a slingshot tongue

Stephanie Abramovich / Daza et al. / Science / Bywire

Illustration of a 99 million year old amphibian with a tongue-in-cheek

Get a load of this guy’s tongue! But what is this on earth? Is it a frog? chameleon? Salamander? No – it’s a 99-million-year-old “strange” amphibian called Albanorpeptide! Now that’s a mouthful!

Scientists have discovered fossils of a prehistoric creature in Myanmar and believe it to be the oldest evidence of a tongue-like slingshot.

They say these armored animals were “sitting and waiting” predators that snatched prey by firing a projectile from their “ballistic tongues”.

Although they had lizard-like claws, scales, and tails, researchers believe that the banarpeptides were not reptiles but rather part of the family of amphibians, such as frogs and newts.

The results, published in the journal Science, changed the way scientists believed small animals to feed on, as the panerbitontides were previously thought to be underground burrows.

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