Venezuela: Los Llanos – Giant Anteaters

Los Llanos is one of the best few places in the entire South America to see the elusive Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla). I have never see one before and was hoping for at least one sighting. And it was more than one – 7 different individuals up close and afar, morning, daytime, evening, and at night – in fact the animal is quite common in Los Llanos and sightings are almost assured. The wide open savanna grasslands are dotted with many termite mounds making it ideal playground for giant anteaters. Giant anteaters are solitary animals and truly massive – over 2.1 m (7 feet) from snout to tail tip and weighing up to 40 kg (90 lbs). They have a huge bushy tail that they use like a blanket to cover their entire body, providing camouflage and temperature regulation when sleeping during the day. They are mostly nocturnal. The animal is rather bizarre looking and is totally adapted to its diet of termites and ants – it has a long tubular snout with a specialized tongue that can reach up to 60 cm (2 feet) long, coated in sticky saliva microscopic backward-facing spines to hook insects. When they rip open a termite mound, their tongue flicks in and out up to 150 times per minute. They have no teeth at all. They consume roughly 30,000 insects a day. They have massive claws to dig the ground but they can also quite aggressively defend against other predators like jaguars or pumas.