In 1969, a man led a strange creature out of the Paris metro station, attracting a crowd of people to watch. The creature is about 1 meter long and has tan hair, but black stripes with white edges on its throat and shoulders. It has a tail about the length of its body, with long, fluffy tail hairs, and the most peculiar thing is its slender and prominent snout, as if it had a stick on its face.
Savaldo Dali and his great anteater
This man was the famous surrealist artist, Savaldo Dali, and the strange creature he was leading was a large anteater.
Raising a large anteater as a pet and leading it around the streets is very much in line with Dalí's artist status, and it is indeed quite surreal. Although I don't know what the master thinks, the big anteater is not a good docile pet, on the contrary, it is very dangerous.
Break the hard termite nest with a 10 cm claw
When it comes to anteaters, we have to mention pangolins, as animals that also feed on ants and termites, they have many things in common, but the only thing that can be said to be very different is their aggressiveness. The pangolin relies on a body of scales to make predators unable to bite, but the anteaters, to be precise, the large anteaters, although they look only have a long hair, are not as good as pangolins, but they are called ant bears, and they are fierce characters that can seriously damage or even kill jaguars.
The main food of the large anteateur is termites, and in order to dig up the nest of termites, its pair of claws are up to 10 centimeters long, and they are very hard and sharp.
Termites are the architects of the animal kingdom, and the nest built by millions of termites is not so much a nest as a miniature castle. Termites will use saliva, excrement, mud and other materials to build castles, after drying the termite nest is thick and hard, and concrete have a fight.
Termite nests
However, for the big anteaters, the hard nest does not constitute any obstacle, someone once saw the big anteater find an ant nest, after the big anteater left, people went up to check, found that the termite nest was dug out of a large hole, full of fragments of the nest.
In order to prevent the pair of claws from wearing out, the anteaters even walk with the back of their toes and the outside of the soles of their feet to touch the ground, walking like a cripple, but their forelimbs are very strong and powerful, and when they stand up, they are like a shrunken bear, so people will also call it "ant bear".
Generally speaking, anteaters are very timid creatures, but if they can't escape danger, then they will stand up with their hind limbs, support their bodies with that tail, and then open their arms and make a hug-like action, which can also be said to be "bear hug".
If it is held by an anteater, its pair of claws that are huge and large enough to dig through the termite nest will grab into the opponent's body like a pit, causing terrible damage, and if it is unfortunate to grasp such a soft place as the abdomen, it is even more likely that it will open the opponent's stomach with one claw.
The claws severely injured jaguars and killed them
The indigenous people of South America have a colloquial term "anteater hug", which means dangerous events that look friendly and friendly but are actually very deadly. In the wild, large anteaters have few predators, only jaguars and cougars will try to hunt them, and large anteaters and jaguars have been seen fighting. Although the jaguar is flexible and fierce, hunting large anteaters is a troublesome task, and even if you are not careful, you will pay a heavy price, even your own life.
The jaguar is agile and vigorous, constantly wandering around the perimeter of the large anteaters, looking for the right time to start, while the anteaters move slowly and can only rely on their noses to defend. Their noses looked soft, but under the skin was a long, hard, bony tube that connected the upper and lower jaws like a spear, and the jaguar didn't want to be poked. But after a few attempts, the jaguar suddenly pounced and used its weight to overwhelm the large anteater.
Adult large anteaters weigh up to 55 kilograms, so they are not powerless to fight back and struggle to stand up. The jaguar used his special skill, opening his blood basin and biting into the throat of the large anteater, but the large anteater shook his body violently at this moment, dodging this fatal blow, and the jaguar only bit the fur of the large anteater.
The fur of the large anteater is very thick, and the longest hair on the body can grow to about 45 centimeters, which is usually used to defend against termite attacks, but it is also very effective in resisting predators. Therefore, the jaguar went down and only caused some minor injuries to the large anteater.
The big anteaters waited for this time, their forelimbs clinging tightly to the cougar like a warm embrace, but in fact its sharp claws were constantly scratching the jaguar's back, shoulders and ribs. Soon, the jaguar could not hold on, and forcefully broke free of the "death hug" of the large anteater, and then limped into the bushes.
After all, although its top speed can reach 49 kilometers per hour, which is much faster than humans, it is certainly unable to catch up with the jaguar, and it is impossible to open its mouth to eat meat, catching up is just a waste of energy.
Although the large anteaters are usually very gentle and even timid, their attack power should not be underestimated, and there have been two incidents of large anteaters injuring people to death.
Together was a 47-year-old Brazilian man who took his dog out hunting and had no intention of hitting the big anteater, but his dog rushed up, and in order to prevent injuring his dog, the man did not shoot, but drew a knife to fight with the big anteater, and as a result, in the fight, the big anteater left a deep wound on the thigh and arm with its claws, and eventually bled too much and died. In the other case was a 75-year-old man whose claws pierced the femoral artery of his thigh, eventually causing the old man's death.
Because of the danger of large anteaters, it is considered a dangerous animal in some countries, prohibiting people from approaching in the wild, even in zoos, and keepers will avoid staying in a space with them.
Powerful in battle, but only eats ants
The great anteaters have unexpected combat power and can even force off jaguars, but they are still a creature that specializes in termites and ants. Many of the organs on the body are prepared for eating termites.
The large anteaters have poor eyesight and can even be seen by people about a meter around. But they have good hearing and a better sense of smell, even stronger than many dogs, with a sense of smell forty times more sensitive than humans, and can find termites far away through the large-nosed anteate.
After finding the nest and digging it up with its claws, the large anteaters stick out their tongues up to 60 centimeters long, which is covered with mucus that can stick to termites, and can retract and contract its tongue at a rate of 150 to 160 times per minute, so they eat fast. Although they have no teeth, they have a hard plate in their mouth that can crush termites and then swallow them
Usually after two to three minutes, the anteaters will leave the nest in a hurry to find the next nest, rather than eating enough. First, this time is exactly the reaction time of the termite soldier ants, and the second is to allow the termites to restore their population. After all, an anteater can eat more than 30,000 termites a day, and if it all feeds in one nest, it will not take long to destroy the nest, so it is better to keep "sustainable development".
The body temperature of the large anteater is very low, the conventional body temperature is only 32.7 ° C, the metabolism is very slow, it takes about 15 hours to sleep every day, and their tails are also used as a quilt to warm up at night, by reducing their own consumption, only by eating termites, 45 kg of large anteaters can even maintain their own life, which has to be said to be very magical. It's no wonder some people call it the "Monster of South America."
Female large anteaters carrying children
Resources
"The Great Anteater: A Wanderer on the South American Prairie" Cheng Drunk
"The Secret of the Great Anteaters" Mo Qi
"Tracking the Great Anteater" Xu Na
The Unique Anteater Monster of South America Borislaw