NL·0551Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Myrmecophaga tridactyla
- Family
- Myrmecophagidae
- Native to
- Central America (rare, Honduras southward) and South America east of the Andes to northern Argentina; extinct in Uruguay and much of Central America
- Habitat
- Savanna (cerrado), Grassland, Wetland, Tropical forest
Giant anteater
Myrmecophaga tridactyla
Also calledTamanduá-bandeira (Portuguese) · Oso hormiguero (Spanish) · Yurumí (Guaraní) · Ant bear
A toothless insect-eater with a tubular snout, a tongue about 60 cm long and a huge, flag-like tail. It raids termite mounds and ant nests for just a minute or so each, flicking its tongue up to 150 times a minute, and moves on before the colony's soldiers mount a defence. Fire, roads and habitat loss have made it Vulnerable.
The giant anteater is a large insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is the largest of the four living species of anteaters, which are classified with sloths in the order Pilosa. The only extant member of the genus Myrmecophaga, the giant anteater is mostly terrestrial, in contrast to other living anteaters and sloths, which are arboreal or semiarboreal. It is recognizable by its elongated snout, bushy tail, long foreclaws, and distinctively colored fur. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iEats around 30,000 ants and termites a day
- iiForelimb claws up to 10 cm tear open concrete-hard termite mounds and can disable a jaguar in defence
- iiiHas one of the lowest body temperatures of any land mammal, about 33 °C
- ivWalks on its knuckles to protect its long claws
In the field
Field marks
- aSilhouette: long tubular head, low body and enormous bushy tail held level or over the body like a blanket
- bBold black diagonal stripe edged with white running from throat over the shoulder
- cPale front legs with a black band above huge curved claws
- dSigns: termite mounds with fresh, fist-sized holes torn in the side; knuckle-walking tracks turned inward
- Not to be confused with
- Southern and northern tamanduas are much smaller, climb trees and have a short, naked prehensile tail. No other animal in its range has the long snout and huge tail together.
- Where to see it
- Serra da Canastra and Emas national parks (Brazilian cerrado); Pantanal (Brazil); Esteros del Iberá (Argentina, reintroduced); Los Llanos (Venezuela, Colombia)
- When
- Resident; often active in daylight in cool weather, nocturnal in hot weather
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Life & habits
- Diet
- Ants and termites; occasionally beetle larvae and fruit
- Habitat
- Open grassland, savanna, wetlands and forest edges
- Size
- Body about 1–1.2 m plus a 65–90 cm tail; 27–50 kg
- Lifespan
- About 15 years in the wild; over 30 in captivity
Solitary. Mothers carry the single young on their back for months, its dark stripe lining up with hers as camouflage.
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Central America (rare, Honduras southward) and South America east of the Andes to northern Argentina; extinct in Uruguay and much of Central America
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
Woodcuts and engravings matched from the Source Library’s scanned books by name. Plates marked “relative” show a close kin rather than this exact species. Click a plate to read the page it came from, with translation.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Myrmecophaga tridactyla in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
In Guaraní the animal is yurumí, and the giant anteater appears in Indigenous stories across the Gran Chaco and cerrado. Since 2007 a rewilding programme in Argentina has reintroduced giant anteaters to the Iberá wetlands, where they had disappeared.
Curiosity
The anteater's tongue is anchored to its sternum, not its mouth, allowing it to extend so far.
Kinship
Fact-checked: 1 correction made to this sheet. Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 47107.