The natural enemy of the giant anteater

In America, there is an animal that feeds on ants. Its tongue can reach 60 centimeters long, which is bigger than domestic kittens. This animal is a giant anteater. Here is an introduction to the relevant knowledge of anteaters.

What is a giant anteater

There are actually four kinds of anteaters, including arboreal and terrestrial, generally known as large anteaters, also known as giant anteaters, and arboreal ones are small anteaters. Large anteaters live mainly in wet forests and swamps, are active during the day or night, and are good at swimming; small anteaters live in trees. The latter two species often hide in dense forests or in tree holes during the day, come out at night to find food, and often destroy ant nests with forelimb claws.

The anteater, as its name suggests, its main food is termites. Although they eat ants regularly, termites are their first choice. Large anteaters have tiny barbs on their tongues that can hook food. As an extra secret weapon, their saliva is sticky. The combination of the two makes it almost impossible for prey to escape. Anteaters can eat up to 30000 termites and other food a day, and eat about 1 million termites a month.

Second, the natural enemies of giant anteaters

Generally speaking, anteaters are difficult to encounter animals that pose a threat to them, and large predators such as jaguars and cougars in the Americas are only comparable to anteaters. There is a saying that the natural enemy of anteaters is pythons, which are more credible. Pythons are powerful stranglers and pose a greater threat to giant anteaters.

Relatively speaking, the natural enemy of the big anteater may be human. Because the animal meat is edible and easy to catch, the number of anteaters has greatly decreased, and it was listed as a world protected animal in the 1970s. Anteaters are all listed in the 2008 Red list of Endangered species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

This is the end of some knowledge about anteaters, interested friends can also inquire about this animal, in order to have a more in-depth understanding, and there is even a video of anteaters vs. Pumas circulated on the Internet.