the.com/anteater
a toothless tongue with legs that eats violence one ant at a time
means A long-snouted mammal that feeds almost entirely on ants and termites, lapping them up with a sticky tongue.
from A plain English compound, exactly what it says on the tin: "ant" (Old English ǣmette, also the ancestor of "emmet") plus "eater." "Ant" and the older "emmet" are doublets — the same word worn down two different ways over centuries. The name simply describes the diet, and English has happily slapped "-eater" onto creatures this way for ages (think "honeyeater," "flesh-eater").
- tongue speed
- flicks up to 160 times per minute
- daily intake
- devours roughly 35,000 ants and termites
- no teeth
- swallows prey whole, grinding with stomach instead
- deadly claws
- can disembowel a jaguar in self-defense
- slow heart
- low body temperature of any land mammal
giant anteater — myrmecophaga tridactyla, found across central and south america, eats up to 30,000 ants daily
pangolin — manis species, asian and african insectivores that eat ants and termites, most trafficked mammals
aardvark — orycteropus afer, african mammal that can dig burrows 43 feet long hunting termites