I heard some leaves rustling outside my room on BCI (the island research field station that I’m living on for 2 weeks). I usually look outside to see an agouti when I hear rustling. If you want to learn more about agoutis and see a photo, scroll all the way back in this blog to February 19, 2013. This time, it was not an agouti; it was a tamandua (anteater).
The anteater was looking for a nice ant colony that it could rip open with its strong front claws. Then it would use its long tongue (the tongue can be one foot long) to lap up hundreds of ants. Tamandua snouts are thin and tube-like, which makes it easy for them to poke their heads into ant colonies. Anteaters also eat termites the same way by scratching open their nests with their strong front claws and using their tongue to lap out the termites. The tamandua is one of my favorite rainforest animals because it looks like it is wearing a dark vest over its tan fur.
Click here if you would like more information on tamanduas.
Here is another photo of a tamandua.
- Fran Zakutansky
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