Giant Anteater

Fun Facts

Giant anteaters can flick their two-foot-long spiny tongues 150 times per minute to eat over 30,000 insects at 200 nests per day. They can feel insect bites, so they only feed for a minute before moving on.

Giant anteaters have no teeth and cannot make stomach acid. To digest food, they rely on hardened folds in their stomachs and the sand, soil, and formic acid of the ants they eat.

While their eyesight is poor, their sense of smell is 40 times stronger than humans. They can distinguish between every species of insect they eat. Each anteater’s saliva also has a unique scent, which is how they recognize one another.

The average body temperature of giant anteaters is 91ºF (32.8ºC), much lower than a typical mammal’s 97–100ºF (36–37.8ºC).

Mother anteaters carry their pups on their backs for their first six to nine months of life. Their claws are sharp enough to kill jaguars with a single swipe, so they cannot touch their offspring.