254 



TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



indeed of the most superficial kind. Most naturalists 

 have associated them with two other groups of animals 

 which are also exclusively American, namely, the ant- 

 eaters and armadillos, and these again with certain Old 

 World ant-eaters, namely, with those known as pango- 

 lins (or the manis), and that called the Cape ant-eater, 

 earth pig or aard-vark of the Dutch Boers. The 

 whole of these form one order of beasts called " Eden- 

 tata," because they have either no teeth, or at least 

 none in the front of the mouth, while their teeth, even 



FIG. 69. 



THE GREAT AXT-EATER. 



if numerous, are of a peculiarly simple structure, save in 

 the aard-vark, in which they are complex, but complex 

 in a way found in no other kind of beast whatever. 



Thus the edentate order of beasts may be taken as 

 a group parallel to the other orders of mammals, such 

 as those of the apes, bats, carnivores, hoofed-beasts, 

 whales, and porpoises, rodents, and insect-eating beasts, 

 respectively. 



Of the American ant-eaters there are three very dis- 

 tinct kinds, and they are singularly different in appearance 

 and habits from the sloths. The great ant-eater stands 



