World Anteater Day - November 29

Some places on the web (mostly but not entirely zoos) advertise today as World Anteater Day!

I'm assuming that today is about celebrating the true anteaters, 4 species that are related to sloths but that excludes animals with similar eating habits through convergent evolution like Aardvarks or Pangolins.

Anteaters don't just eat ants; termites are on their menu too. And so are less social insects of a similar size. Since ants and termites will attack with bites/stings, anteaters utilize a hit-and-run strategy. They tend to slurp up some insects at a nest, then move on to another nest that's not gearing up to attack the anteater.

Though you might not share their dietary preferences, you can still celebrate these odd animals today

350z33, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


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