article_snippet: While scientists have theories about how fish first crawled onto land and breathed air, it's a mystery as to how vertebrates evolved tongues instead of feeding using suction.
article_snippet: Experts believe the finding may shed light on how terrestrial tetrapods - four-legged vertebrates - with tongues evolved from fish between 400 and 250 million years ago.
article_snippet: However, this method doesn’t work on land, so terrestrial vertebrates evolved tongues to move the food to the back of the throat.
article_snippet: The scientists finding is reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences and is the opposite of what fish do underwater.
article_snippet: However, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences closely resembles the feeding habits of newts, which have tongues.
article_snippet: Dr Michel said: ‘This could be an in-between, from which a fleshy tongue could have evolved.
highlights_snippet: Find could help solve the evolutionary mystery of how tongues evolved .