NO. 5 MAMMALS OF PANAMA GOLDMAN 6l 



Family MYRMECOPHAGIDAE. Anteaters 



The anteaters are the only really toothless American members of 

 the order Edentata. The three well-known South American genera 

 range northward through Panama. 



Genus CYCLOPES Gray. Two-toed Anteaters 

 The genus Cyclopes includes very small species at once distinguish- 

 able by the reduction of the toes on the fore foot to two, instead of 

 three, as in the other genera of the family. The tapering tail is 

 strongly prehensile, and the general pelage soft and silky. 



CYCLOPES DIDACTYLUS DORSALIS (Gray) 



Costa Rican Two-toed Anteater 



Cyclothurus dorsalis Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1865, p. 385, pi. 19. 

 Type from Costa Rica. 



The presence of two toes only on the fore foot, and the golden 

 yellowish general coloration and soft silky quality of the pelage of 

 this handsome little anteater readily distinguish it from the other 

 mammals of the region. It is more yellowish, or golden, less grayish 

 in color than typical C. didactylus, as originally described and as 

 pointed out by Thomas, 1 who seems fully justified in regarding the 

 Costa Rican animal as a geographic race of the South American 

 species. The animal ranges from Costa Rica into Panama, at least 

 as far east as the Canal Zone where its occurrence was reported by 

 the natives, but I was unable to secure specimens. 



The two-toed anteater is more strictly arboreal than the other 

 genera, and owing to this fact, together with its nocturnal habits and 

 small size, easily escapes observation. Of its life history little is 

 known. Bates 2 describes the capture of a living specimen of the 

 allied form in Brazil by an Indian who found it clinging motionless 

 inside a hollow tree. He says : " It remained nearly all the time 

 without motion, except when irritated, in which case it reared itself 

 on its hind legs from the back of a chair to which it clung, and clawed 

 out with its fore paws like a cat. Its manner of clinging with its 

 claws, and the sluggishness of its motions, gave it a great resemblance 

 to a sloth. It uttered no sound and remained all night on the spot 

 where I had placed it in the morning. The next day I put it on a 

 tree in the open air and at night it escaped. These small Tamanduas 

 are nocturnal in their habits, and feed on those species of termites 

 which construct earthy nests that look like ugly excrescences on the 



1 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, Vol. 6, p. 302, September, 1900. 



2 Naturalist on the Amazons, Vol. i, 1883, p. 178. 



