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Southern Tamandua

Tamandua tetradactyla

Photo by Tukup
Published on Project Noah
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-2.15, -77.69

Field Notes

Description:

A medium sized anteater (this one was a young one) that can grow to over 5 feet long including the tail which is about half the body length. As this was a young one, it was pretty much mono-colored with darker fur around the neck and onto the chest. When full grown, they will have a mostly black body with head, neck and legs of light brown.

Habitat:

The Southern Tamandua are solitary animals, usually roaming alone. They can be found in many habitats, primarily in primary and secondary forests however they can also sometimes be found in savannas; basically wherever their food can be found

Notes:

The Southern Tamandua eats ants and termites principally, and sometimes bees. The claws are long and really sharp (personal experience :-) and they have no trouble tearing into incredibly hard termite nests.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (3)

Yeah, those claws are strong. As a child we went to the San Diego zoo often. I overheard one of the animal handler/performers telling someone that she'd visited a baby giant anteater in the nursery and was trying to hide the scratches from her husband/coperformer!
I saw a full-grown one on the trail one day, but he was gone before I could get my camera out. Also had a small one that I made the mistake of holding with my bare hands. It took a few minutes to get his claws out of my hand. He was just hanging on :-(

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