a rift

biomedicalephemera:

Giant Anteater - Myrmecophaga tridactyla

The giant anteater is much bigger than illustrations make them seem - males can get up to 90 lbs and over 7 feet long.

Their tongues are “elastic”, almost 2 feet long, coated in a sticky saliva, and anchored directly to their sternums, rather than the hyoid bone that anchors most mammalian tongues. They flick in and out almost 180 times per minute. As one might expect, they do not have teeth, but smash the ants against their palate before swallowing. Their stomachs are tough, but do not produce their own acid; they use the formic acid of the ants in order to digest.

Since the structure of termite mounds can be as tough as concrete in some places, the anteaters need strong, well-anchored claws to tear them open. These claws would get in the way while trotting through their environments, however, and as such, anteaters walk on their knuckles, much like the great apes.

Brehms Tierleben, Allgemeine Kunde des Tierreichs. Prof. Otto zur Strassen, 1912.