Imagine a diet of over 35,000 ants and termites each day! The south american animal, the giant anteater does just that. With a gait that almost seems as if its limping, the giant anteater shuffles along, searching out the unfortunate insects.
They are called “giant” for a reason, as they can grow to a size of over 7 feet in length. They will often weight up to 120 pounds.
They use their strong sense of smell to locate grubs, ants, and termites. They also have a very keen sense of hearing which allows them to hear movement and also detect the presence of approaching predators. The rest of their bodies are perfectly made to claw out the insects with their extremely sharp claws and then suck up the ants at a rate of a few THOUSAND of them in just a few minutes. Curiously, they don’t stay longer than that at one ant hive in order to avoid the threat of soldier ants.
Soldier ants will fight back with painful stings, so the anteater makes a fast food stop and is outta there in a hurry. They actually will never completely destroy a nest, preferring instead to visit again and again in the future. Pretty smart.
Although the giant anteater is hunted itself by the cougar and the jaguar, they don’t run. These suckers are tough! They’ll stand and fight if threatened, using their sharp claws to work to defend against their predators. Many times they’ll even be successful in warding off an attack from a large South American cat.
They can actually be dangerous to humans. You can imagine — its a wild animal with EXTREMELY sharp claws. Apparently one unlucky 19 year old zookeeper was attacked by a giant anteater in Argentina. The zookeeper’s legs and abdomen were mauled so badly by the claws that she ended up dying after leg amputation surgery.
If you’re ever in Central or South America, where they live in tropical forests and in grasslands, it would be good to remember to observe an anteater, but to never get close to one in the wild. They are absolutely dangerous when cornered and will use its tail for balance while lashing out at whoever gets close. Not a good situation.
A huge problem for the anteater, though, is humans. Not because they are being poached, although that does sometimes happen. But mainly because the human race is gradually consuming the anteater’s habitat. There are estimates that say that there are perhaps as few as 5000 of them left in the wild. The females only have one single offspring per year, so they are disadvantaged in this way — not being able to reproduce rapidly like the south american capybara. They are definitely on several endangered species lists as “threatened.”
They carry their young on their backs for a period of time, even after the offspring is able to walk around on its own. The gestation period is about 40 days and the infant anteater will not hunt for ants and other insects on its own until is at least two years old.