Anteater facts

5:11pm Friday 1st February 2008

With a host of unique body features, the giant anteater is easily one of the oddest-looking animals known to roam the forests and savannahs of Central and South America.

It is also one of the most specialised for what it does best: eating ants and termites.

Adult giant anteaters can grow to be between six and eight feet (1.8-2.4m) long and from 65 to 140 pounds (29-63kg) in weight.

Their bodies include a 3-4 foot long torso and a bushy tail of up to the same length.

The smallest species of anteater is the silky anteater, which is just 14 inches long on average.

They spend up to 15 hours a day resting, usually in curled up and using their bushy tails for cover.

Giant anteaters are solitary creatures and spend most of their time alone as they either search for food or sleep.

They are believed to have poor eyesight but a particularly acute sense of smell, making them adept at seeking out not only food but also any possible risks or would-be predators.

Their sense of smell may even be as much as 40-times as sensitive as that of humans.

Giant anteaters mate in the autumn and give birth the following spring after a gestation of 190 days. The female gives birth standing up, using her tail as an extra support.

Usually there is only one offspring, although twins are known. The young crawl onto the mother's back and are carried for up to a year. They are weaned at 6 months, and can gallop after only one month, but they remain with the mother for up to two years, when they become sexually mature.

They are victims of hunting for trophies as well as being popular targets for animal dealers. Anteaters are also at risk of habitat destruction and as a result have been classified as vulnerable' in the wild.

• Giant anteaters are indigenous to Central and South America, and are known as the "ant bear" in many languages.
• As the name suggests anteaters eat ants, but also termites and other insects that do not have chemical defences. They can eat up to 30,000 insects a day.
• In captivity a giant anteater can live for up to 30 years.
• The more populated an area is with humans, the more likely the local anteaters are to be nocturnal.
• Giant anteaters forage for food in savannahs, wet forests and swamps; all places where ants and termites are plentiful.
• The more populated the area, the more likely the anteaters living there will be nocturnal.
• Anteaters find their prey in the wild by using a finely tuned sense of smell. Once an anteater has found an ant or termite nest it tears apart the colony using its powerful forelegs and claws. Then using its long snout and tongue it will scoop out the prey from the nests - as many as a few thousand in just a few minutes.
• A giant anteater's tongue, can be flicked in and out of the mouth over 150 times a minute, to help the beast get as many insects for its meal as possible.
• Giant anteaters have no teeth, so stones and other debris they swallow when scooping up prey with their tongue help chewing food in the wild.