My Temple of Nature: Ambling Anteaters

If you looked at the video of the maned wolf in the last post, then you also saw the Giant Anteater, one of the stranger looking animals on the planet and found in Central and South America. There are four species of anteaters and the Giant Anteater is the largest. No surprise there!

Photo by Malene Thyssen Source: Wikipedia

Even though it does eat ants, in Brazil's Cerrado (also mentioned in the last post), it lives mostly on termites because they are in such abundant supply. In fact, the Cerrado is peppered with termite mounds and an entire ecosystem revolves around them.

Source: Pantanal Bird Club

The anteater is perfectly equipped for termite mounds. Its large claws can create a hole with ease, but rather than destroying an entire mound the anteater only spends about three minutes at each mound eating as much as it can and then going on to another one. The termites will defend their nest and their stinging bites are more annoying than hurtful because of the anteater's thick coat. But this system allows the termites to quickly mend their nest and not be too effected by the anteater's forays, ensuring that a meal will be available to the anteater on another day. The anteater also has a long sticky tongue - up to two feet - which is perfect for gathering termites, eggs and larvae inside the mound.

You might wonder how such a large animal can live on such little insects. One answer is that it eats a LOT of termites - up to 30,000 a day! But it also conserves energy by sleeping 14 hours out of 24 and has one of the lowest body temperatures for a land mammal - only 90 degrees F giving it a very low metabolism rate.

Photo by Nicole Duplaix Source: National Geographic

Because of its claws, the anteater is a knuckle-walker like a gorilla. One other interesting fact - the anteater has no teeth! Just hard growths on the inside of its mouth.

As I mentioned there are many species that depend on the termite mounds besides the anteater. The Brazilian Three-Banded Armadillo and Six-Banded Armadillo also eat and depend on the termites for food. Burrowing owls live under the mounds and campo flickers use the mounds for a nest. The headlight beetle lives in the outer shell of the termite mounds and at night the larvae glow in the dark, looking like some of the night stars have somehow fallen from the sky.