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Tuesday 30 August 2011

Anteater

The giant anteater was named Myrmecophaga tridactyla, meaning a three-fingered eater of ants, by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

The anteater lives almost entirely on ants and termites and soft-bodied grubs.

The giant anteater can eat 30,000 insects a day.

Anteaters are the only mammals that do not have teeth; instead, they have tongues, which start at its breastbone and can extend up to two feet.

Pixabay

Their physical digestion is aided by the pebbles and debris that they consume when they ingest insects.

Anteaters are incapable of producing their own digestive acids. They instead use formic acid found in the stinging venom of the ants they eat, which essentially means the ants are dissolved in their own acid.

Anteaters only stay at one ant colony for a short period of time to avoid soldier ants.

Anteaters are one of three surviving families of a once diverse group of mammals that occupied South America while it was geographically isolated from an invasion of animals from North America, the other two being the sloths and the armadillos.

There is no generally agreed collective noun for anteaters, which are solitary animals, however sources suggest a parade, a flock or a herd.

Sources Wikipedia, Daily Express

3 comments:

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