THE ANT BEAR 



present powerlessness of zoologists to do any better. 

 They fit in nowhere else, and in the meantime the group 

 Edentata may be retained as an assemblage of creatures 

 which admittedly require sorting out when we are able 

 to do it. 



THE AMERICAN ANT-EATER 



One of the most remarkable types of animal life which 

 frequent the gloomy forests of South America is the 

 great ant-bear, Myrmecophaga jubata, the maned ant- 

 eater as it might be better called, in deference to its 

 Linnaean name. Claws, tail and tongue, are its most 

 striking attributes, and are most intimately concerned 

 with its mode of life. It is a large and not uncomely 

 beast, of a greyish black colour, with a conspicuous stripe 

 over the shoulder, a small head at the end of a longish 

 neck, and with a great bushy tail, which is carried in an 

 arched fashion. Including this tail the ant-bear gets to 

 be as long as seven feet, and the two sexes are of the same 

 build and colour. The claws are so long and stout that 

 the beast has to walk upon the sides of them. Their 

 massive character is in association with the fact that the 

 animal tears open the high ant-hills inhabited by the 

 termites, or white ants of South America, which are 

 often constructed with great solidity. The emerging 

 ants are then licked up by the extraordinarily long and 

 thin tongue, aided by a copious secretion of saliva. In 

 most mammals the salivary glands are limited to the 

 head and throat. But in Myrmecophaga these glands 

 extend right over the breast, and are thus in a position 

 to produce an enormous quantity of the necessary bird- 

 lime for the capture of its prey. Like Manis of the East, 

 Myrmecophaga has a mouth as toothless as that of the 

 crone. But what it lacks in offensiveness in the mouth 

 it makes up for by its claws, which can rip open any dog 

 in a stroke or two. Their more effective use as an instru- 



Z.G. 129 K 



