The giant anteater is a toothless, knuckle-walking marvel with a two-foot-long tongue.

Nature · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The giant anteater is the largest of its kind, a specialized insectivore that navigates tropical grasslands with a powerful sense of smell. Despite its clumsy appearance, this solitary mammal possesses a surprising defensive arsenal, using massive, sharp claws to tear open termite mounds and fend off potential threats with ease.

The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is a unique member of the suborder Vermilingua, a group characterized by their lack of teeth and specialized, wormlike tongues. Measuring up to 2.17 meters in length and weighing as much as 50 kilograms, it is the largest of the four extant anteater species. Its anatomy is perfectly tuned for its diet: a tubular muzzle houses a tongue that can reach 60 centimeters in length, coated in sticky saliva to efficiently extract ants and termites from their nests.

Evolutionarily, the giant anteater is the most terrestrial member of its family, a trait that likely emerged as South American savannas expanded and colonial insects became an abundant food source. While its relatives, such as the silky anteater and tamanduas, are arboreal or semiarboreal, the giant anteater has adapted to life on the ground. It protects its formidable front claws by walking on its knuckles, a gait that appears shuffling but allows for a surprisingly rapid gallop of up to 48 kilometers per hour when the animal is threatened.

Despite their size, these animals are mostly solitary, coming together only for mating or mother-offspring interactions. Females give birth to a single young, which rides on its mother’s back for up to a year. Their survival is currently challenged by habitat loss and poaching, leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature to list them as vulnerable. Understanding their role in the ecosystem—and their deep evolutionary history, which diverged from sloths roughly 58 million years ago—remains a critical focus for conservationists working to protect these distinctively patterned creatures.

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