#xenarthran

Day 362#: Giant Anteater

Today's animal of the day is the Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla)!

Photo credit: Thiago Gonçalves Coronado Antunes

So, originally, when anon said to do any anteater, I was going to do the silky anteater, since they're not super well known and I think they deserve some more attention. HOWEVER, as soon as I began researching them, it came to my attention that there's currently some taxonomic debate surrounding them. Turns out that the silky anteater might be getting split up into SEVEN different species! So, I'm gonna hold off talking about them until that's all sorted out, and instead of talking about the smallest species of anteater, I'm going to be talking about the largest species!

Photo credit: Miguel Relvas Ugalde

The giant anteater can be found throughout Central and South America and lives in a variety of habitats from rainforests to savannas. As their name suggests, their diet consists mostly of ants, termites, and other insects such as the larvae of various types of beetles and even honey bees! Because of their insectivorous diet, anteaters have developed several utterly bizarre adaptations. For starters, their snouts are incredibly long and tube-shaped in order to hold their incredibly long tongues, which can grow up to 2 ft long! That's the longest tongue-to-body ratio of any animal alive! The rest of their mouth is also pretty strange since they can't open it very wide and have no teeth. Instead of chewing the insects that they slurp up using their tongues, they'll grind them up against their palate before swallowing them. Their stomach is shaped sort of like a bird's gizzard and has lots of folds to further grind up its food. They'll also swallow small rocks and sand to use as gastroliths (like how many species of birds and non-avian dinosaurs do/did). Strangely, anteaters are incapable of producing stomach acid and instead use the formic acid produced by the ants and termites they eat to digest their food.

Photo credit: Suiann Porai

As I said before, the giant anteater is the largest species of anteater and grows between 6 and 8 feet long and can weigh around 100 lb. They're also surprisingly dangerous! Their sharp front claws, which help them break into termite mounds, also help to protect them from potential predators. Giant anteaters have been observed fending off and sometimes even killing jaguars using their claws, and there are even a couple of reports of anteaters, both in the wild and in zoos, killing people by stabbing them with their claws. You can tell when an anteater is about to attack you when they rear up on their hind legs, using their large tails to steady themselves, and hold their arms in kind of a T-pose. While this might seem amusing, they're actually showing off their claws and preparing to shank you. They've also been known to occasionally squeal and grunt during their threat displays, which is usually the only time they'll make vocalizations as adults.

Photo credit: Cordenos Thierry

Giant anteaters are usually solitary in the wild and can even act aggressively if approached by another member of their own kind. In captivity, they're slightly more sociable, but can still act rather aggressively if they feel too crowded (especially the males). Wild giant anteaters typically prefer to forage in more open savannas and grasslands, but will move to more forested areas to sleep. They switch from being diurnal during cooler times of the year to nocturnal during the summer months when the sun can make foraging out in open areas unbearably hot. Scientists have also observed that anteaters who live in areas closer to human settlements tend to be more active at night year-round, in order to avoid humans.

Photo credit: Marcos Halem Felix

Giant anteaters are capable of breeding at any time of the year, and females will signal to males that they are ready to mate by raising their large bushy tails. A mated pair will stay close to one another for about three days, during which they will often forage alongside each other and mate numerous times. Female anteaters give birth to only one pup at a time, and apparently give birth while standing upright. There seems to be some evidence that they can delay their pregnancies during times when food is scarce, but more research needs to be done to confirm or deny this. However, many other species of mammals are capable of doing this, so I wouldn't be surprised if anteaters can too. Mother anteaters carry their babies on their backs, as they are totally blind for their first six days of life, and will continue doing so until they become too large to carry. Pups will whistle to let their mothers know when they are hungry and need to nurse, at least until they are about three months old and can start eating solid food. However, they will continue to occasionally nurse until they are around 10 months old, which is also when they leave their mothers. When they are between 2.5 and 4 years old, they become sexually mature, and they can live for around 15 years in the wild (26 in zoos).

Photo credit: Luciano Bernardes

You might think that anteaters are closely related to other insectivores with super long tongues, like aardvarks or pangolins. BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG! Giant anteaters actually belong to the order Xenarthra, which includes the other species of anteaters, armadillos, and sloths! I can kind of see how they are related to armadillos, but the fact that they're related to sloths is crazy! What's crazier is that they're actually more closely related to sloths than they are to armadillos! Sadly, giant anteaters are considered vulnerable by the IUCN due to threats such as deforestation and poaching.

Photo credit: Sebastián Vizcarra

Also, I forgot to mention this but giant anteaters are surprisingly good swimmers! They'll regularly swim across rivers and flooded grasslands in order to move from one feeding site to another.

Photo credit: Smithonian National Zoo