It is said that the African continent has the most strange creatures, the world's tallest giraffe, and the world's fastest cheetah. However, none of these animals are surprising. There is one animal that, to be precise, does not live only in Africa, and although they are not fast enough and not high enough, they have a stunt that other animals cannot match - long tongues. Yes, they are the creatures with the longest tongue in the world and make a living by eating ants. Speaking of which, I think I have the answer in mind, they are the protagonists I want to talk about today - anteaters.
I believe that when it comes to anteaters, everyone's first reaction is to eat ant-eating animals. It is. Morphologically, the anteaters resemble pangolins, with a pointed and long head and small, rounded ears on either side. Resembles an elongated inverted triangle. Their limbs are very penetrating. In particular, the forelimbs are full of strength, with the middle toe being the most prominent, with hooked claws like a sickle. But from these points of view, it is exactly the same as a pangolin.
But unlike pangolins, they don't have hard armor for protection. It all relies on limbs and claws for "daily combat". In terms of appearance, it is not as powerful as pangolins (personal opinion).
When it comes to shape, we have to mention its tongue, which must be said. How special is the tongue of an anteater. For example, if their tongues are all sticking out and are 60 centimeters long, what is this concept? Ordinary domestic cats are only more than 50 centimeters long, which means that their tongue alone is longer than the entire length of the domestic cat. This is what makes them most special.
In terms of living habits, they are distributed in Central and South America, from the southernmost tip of Mexico to Brazil, a large area, mostly common in forest meadows and other places, mainly eating ants and other small insects.
I always hear friends complaining that the old house has entered the termite. Quite bored, exhausted all means to no avail. At this time, it would be nice if there was an anteater. So how awesome are the anteaters, even the intractable termites have become "ghosts under the knife"?
Friends who have watched "Animal World" know that sometimes termite nests are not so obvious, and nests are built on the surface. Often, in order to find out, it is difficult for scientific researchers to use all kinds of tools to cut through, but it is easy for anteaters. Anteaters have rather poor eyesight and can only rely on a sensitive sense of smell to find termites. When they encounter a termite nest, they first use their sharp front paws to look for a break point in the nest, and then the middle toe of the front paw extends a sickle-like hook to make a hole in the nest, starting from small to large. When the hole is dug, the ants inside will be exposed to the eyes, and the anteater will be like a wild horse that has lost its reins, acting arbitrarily. The termite nest is small, and it is not a hindrance to enter, at which time the anteater sticks out its long tongue to "turn the river and the sea" in the termite nest.
Seeing this, you may ask, termites can escape, and the place where the anteater's tongue can't lick is the way termites live. This is correct, but conditions do not allow it. You know, the anteaters' tongues are covered with a lot of small spines and mucus. This small thorn can hook the termite on the tongue and cannot escape, while the mucus is like glue, firmly sticking the ant and cannot escape at all. Anteaters use their powerful forelimbs to tear apart the nests of ants and termites, prey on them with their long tongues, swallow them, and grind them by thickening their stomachs.
When we say that an animal is strong, we always inadvertently compare it with other opponents. Today we have a special one, bringing the anteaters and the most fearsome marching ants to a group duel.
Since you said that anteaters specialize in ants, can the most fearsome marching ants be subdued? We all know that the marching ant is a carnivore. Its head has a pair of steel tongs that can quickly crush prey, and if a group of marching ants attack at the same time, the effect is to eat a deer until only white bones are left.
But according to my deduction, even the most powerful marching ants are not rivals to anteaters.
Physical advantage. Although anteaters do not have the same hard armor as pangolins, their fur is not vegetarian. In the process of biological evolution, they who eat insects have already evolved the skin on their bodies to be "indestructible". When hunting, insects are often helpless against the "cheeky" of anteaters. Imagine if the skin of anteaters is fragile, how can they resist their counterattack when eating insects?
Tongue mucus. As we have already said above, the tongue of anteaters is characterized by its long and sticky nature. This facilitates their hunting. As the "best" in the ant world, although the marching ant is terrifying, it is always an ant in the end. Don't forget, the anteaters' tongues are both small and sticky. While hooking you, you can be glued with slime, even if the marching ant is bigger, it will not be able to escape after all. And the main point is that the marching ants crawl slowly, and the anteaters eat very fast. Their tongues can rapidly expand and contract in their mouths up to 150 times per minute, more than 2 times per second. In such a comparison, the marching ant dares to challenge the anteater no matter how powerful it is, but it is just "sending a human head".
Contemporary people pay attention to eating less and more meals, a meal can not eat too full, to leave room. The anteaters seem to know this well. According to biological studies, when anteaters look for termite nests, they will not destroy them all, leaving a little room for it. They only feed in one nest for 2 minutes at a time. There are two reasons: First, it probably takes so long for the termite soldier ants to react to the fact that their hometown is being licked and about to start fighting back. At this point, the anteater immediately left, looking for the next target.
Second, this gives the ants time to restore their population so that the anteaters can always have a stable source of food. The anteater is still very clever, and the chicken killing and egg retrieval will certainly not be done.
As a special predatory animal, the anteaters deeply affect us in terms of appearance and feeding methods. Just as they leave room for prey ants, we are also worth learning from, and any creature that takes from them also needs to give them room to breathe, not to push them to extinction. If the anteaters are not restrained, the end result is that they have nothing to eat and starve to death. In the same way, human beings are the same, proper reflection and summary, so as to effectively maintain the balance of nature, but also truly in line with the principle of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.