Animal Diversity Web

Four species in three gen­era make up this fam­ily, whose mem­bers are found in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica.

Anteaters range from the very small Cy­clopes, which weighs around 250 gms, to the large Myrme­cophaga, which weighs over 30 kg. All anteaters have long, ta­pered snouts; that of Myrme­cophaga is ex­tra­or­di­nar­ily elon­gated. The tongue is also long. Anteaters se­crete a sticky sub­stance from their sali­vary glands that coats the tongue when they feed. The ears are small and rounded, and the eyes are small. The tails are long and pre­hen­sile in 2 of the 3 gen­era. The fore­limbs are re­mark­able. They have 5 dig­its, each with long and sharp claws, the third claw being es­pe­cially well de­vel­oped. The hind feet are less spe­cial­ized, with 4 or 5 toes and strong but not re­mark­able claws. Myrme­cophaga walks with a pe­cu­liar, shuf­fling gait; Taman­dua species walk on the sides of their hands; and Cy­clopes are al­most ex­clu­sively ar­bo­real. The body fur varies from coarse and long (Myrme­cophaga) to short, soft, and silky (Cy­clopes). All species have some sort of con­trast­ing color pat­tern.

Be­sides its ex­treme elon­ga­tion, the skull of anteaters is re­mark­able be­cause it com­pletely lacks teeth. The jugal is small or ab­sent, and the zy­go­matic arch is in­com­plete. The pre­max­il­lae are small, but the the lacrimals are large and well de­vel­oped. The palate is very long; its pos­te­rior mar­gin is ex­tended by the fu­sion of the ptery­goids in some species. The mouth open­ing is tubu­lar and very small. The mandibles are long, thin, and weak.

Anteaters feed al­most ex­clu­sively on ants and ter­mites, whose nests they rip open with their pow­er­ful fore­limbs. They also take some bee­tle lar­vae and bees, and in cap­tiv­ity giant anteaters ac­cept some fruit. The prey of anteaters ad­heres to their long, sticky tongues. It is swal­lowed, and part of the di­ges­tive process in­volves grind­ing by the un­usu­ally mus­cu­lar py­loric re­gion of the stom­ach. Cy­clopes for­ages ar­bo­re­ally; Taman­dua on the ground or in trees, and Myrme­cophaga strictly on the ground.

These an­i­mals are not gre­gar­i­ous; they come to­gether pri­mar­ily for the pur­pose of breed­ing. The fore­claws of the larger species are highly ef­fec­tive de­fen­sive weapons against preda­tors. Giant anteaters for­age dur­ing day and night; the other species are most often noc­tur­nal or cre­pus­cu­lar. All anteaters have an ex­cel­lent sense of smell; sight and hear­ing are not as well de­vel­oped.

Ge­o­log­i­cally, the fam­ily is known only back to the Early Miocene in South Amer­ica. The record is poor, how­ever, and the group is likely to be older.

Lit­er­a­ture and ref­er­ences cited

Bar­low, J. C. 1984. Xe­narthrans and pholi­dotes. Pp. 219-239 in An­der­son, S. and J. K. Jones, Jr. (eds). Or­ders and Fam­i­lies of Re­cent Mam­mals of the World. John Wiley and Sons, N.Y. xii+686 pp.

Par­adiso, J. L. 1975. Walker's Mam­mals of the World, Third Edi­tion. Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press, Bal­ti­more.

Sav­age, R. J. G. and M. R. Long. 1986. Mam­mal Evo­lu­tion, an Il­lus­trated Guide. Facts of File Pub­li­ca­tions, New York. 259 pp.

Vaughan, T. A. 1986. Mam­mal­ogy. Third Edi­tion. Saun­ders Col­lege Pub­lish­ing, Fort Worth. vii+576 pp.

Wil­son, D. E., and D. M. Reeder. 1993. Mam­mal Species of the World, A Tax­o­nomic and Ge­o­graphic Ref­er­ence. 2nd edi­tion. Smith­son­ian In­sti­tu­tion Press, Wash­ing­ton. xviii+1206 pp.

Con­trib­u­tors

Phil Myers (au­thor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.