Hi, I am an Anteater. I can be found in South America and Central America or even the zoo. I love to inhabit woodlands, rainforests, and deciduous forests. I have a long tongue and a long face. I love ANTS and TERMITES for dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dessert. We can be as small as a squirrel, called the Silky Anteater, or the Giant Anteater like me, 7 feet long.
I do not have any teeth, but a long sticky tongue to catch ants. My tongue can be up to 2 feet long and is very narrow covered with tiny spines. I can catch ants and termites through the holes of anthills. I am very careful not to destroy the anthill because I will come back and get more ants. Ants will bite me and that’s why I eat them very quickly. When you see me, you may see me flicking my tongue over 100 times in my mouth during feeding to grab enough at the same time and so I do not get bitten.
We can eat up to 30,000 insects per day, and our stomach grinds large quantity of ants and termites, because it produces formic acid and hydrochloric acid to digest the ants. I have poor eyesight but my sense of smell is GREAT! My sense of smell is better than peoples, and I use my nose to find food. If you see a group of us at the zoo we are then called a Parade. When my Mom had me it took her 190 days before I was born. I stayed with her for 2 years. It was fun for the first year she carried me on her back. Maybe one day you can see a baby anteater being carried by her mom the next time you are at the zoo.
[the_ad id="61677"]