Giant Anteater

The giant anteater is unmistakable: a long tubular snout with a tiny mouth, a huge bushy tail and a coarse grey-brown coat crossed by a broad black band edged in white running from the throat diagonally over the shoulder. The front legs are mostly white with black bands at the wrist, and the forefeet carry large curved claws, so the animal walks on its knuckles. It has no teeth and picks up insects with a sticky tongue about 60cm long that can flick in and out around 160 times a minute (Wikipedia, general species account; Gaudin et al. 2018, Mammalian Species).

It is solitary except for mothers, which carry their single young on their back until it is weaned. Anteaters rip open ant and termite nests with their front claws and feed for only a short time at each so the colony survives. Activity depends on temperature and disturbance: in the Pantanal they are mostly nocturnal in warm weather and more active by day when it is cool, and they rest in forest patches that buffer heat and cold. Daily movements average about 3–7km. Threatened animals rear up on their hind legs and slash with their claws (Handbook of the Mammals of the World; Wikipedia, general species account).

Its range reaches south to the Gran Chaco of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. The giant anteater is commonly hunted in Bolivia, both for food and as a trophy, and in the Chaco its thick hide is used to make riding equipment (Wikipedia, general species account). On this guide it is a target species of Barba Azul and the Beni savannas and of Noel Kempff Mercado National Park.