Anteater
By: Jack Maietta
Did you know that anteaters are great swimmers and great tree climbers?
Appearance & Classifaction
The size is 3-7 ft. The anteaters weight is 6 oz up to 86 lbs. The tallest anteater is the Giant Anteater. It's up to 7 ft tall. The colors of the anteater is black, grey, white, tan and brown. The skin cover is all fur. It is a large fur ball. An interesting body feature is its long, sticky, thin tongue. The anteater is a mammal.
Habitat Information
In the world, it lives in South and Central America. The climate depends on where in South and Central America it lives. It could be hot and dry or cool and wet. Their homes are grasslands, and savannas. They like plains with grass. They also live in the trees and open tropical forests.
Predator & Prey
The anteaters enemies are pumas, snakes, jaguars, cougars, and even some humans. The anteater protects it self by using its sharp curved claws. The anteaters eat ants obviously. It also eats termites and other kinds of insects. It finds its food by flicking its tongue in and out into ant hill. It can flick its tongue up to 160 times each minute. OH MY GOSH!!! My animal is an omnivore. An omnivore eats plants and meats.
The anteater is a great animal to study!
Fascinating facts
I learned many fascinating facts about the anteater. One is that they are more than ready to defend themselves. They are known to become very fierce using their strong legs to kick predators. Anteaters always walk on their knuckles. The last fact is that anteaters have terrible eyesight but has a keen sense of smell.
I hope you will study the anteater because if you do, you will be AMAZED!!!
Anteater sitting around
An anteater climbing a tree
Sticking its long tongue out
Sources
Websites from :
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/,www.bbc.org,
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
Videos:
Magic School Bus, In the Rainforest By: Kid Vision/Scholastic inc. Copyright: 2000