[2] The player steers the tongue of the eponymous creature through a maze, retracting it when dangers approach.

Though the arcade game was not a hit, it spawned a number of direct clones for home computers; Sierra's Oils Well became better known than the original.

At the start of each level, the music played is a short fragment of Ranz des Vaches, the third movement of William Tell Overture.

[3] No official ports were released but Datamost's Ardy The Aardvark (1983), which is almost identical, was written for the Apple II by Anteater creator Chris Oberth.

It sparked its own clones: Pipeline Run for the Commodore 64 in 1990[5] and Oilmania for the Atari ST and Amiga in 1991 and 1992, respectively.