EO the Anteater

• E.O., our baby anteater, is now on exhibit daily. The best place to spot him is from the suspension bridge in the Cornell Tropics of the Americas exhibit
• Opportunities for up-close encounters with EO are scheduled periodically during the week at the “dig site” across from the jaguar exhibit, where a zookeeper will talk about EO and answer your questions.
• Typically, a baby anteater will ride around on its mother’s back for a minimum of 6 months after birth until it is weaned. E.O.’s mother, Odelia is such an avid swimmer that we could not risk putting them on exhibit until E.O. was larger and able to walk around and swim on his own.
• Giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) are native to Central and South America from southern Belize and Guatemala to northern Argentina.
• This unique species are edentates, meaning “toothless,” is equipped with a two-foot-long tongue. The tongue is covered with sticky saliva and backward-pointing spines to help remove ants and termites from their nests. The anteater can flick its tongue 150 times per minute and consume as many as 30,000 ants or termites in a day.
• Because the rear legs are smaller than the front legs, the anteater walks with an ambling gait. It protects the large claws on the front feet by walking on the knuckles. The claws consist of four smaller claws and one extremely large claw on the middle digit. This large claw is used to rip open rotten logs and termite mounds when foraging for food, and for defense. When threatened, the giant anteater will use a fear-defense posture, rearing onto its hind legs and brandishing its claws.
• Come and meet this amazing animal at the Palm Beach Zoo!