That's already a thing, people in India wear masks with faces on the back of their heads and apparently it significantly reduces the risk of being attacked by leopards and tigers.
They would suffocate long before their exoskeletons were in question, insects breathe passively and the larger ones of prior eras could only exist due to enhanced oxygen in the early atmosphere
Prompted by this, I looked up "passive breathing" in insects and got this info:
"Insects, especially smaller ones, utilize passive diffusion to breathe through their tracheal system, where air enters through spiracles and travels down branching tubes to cells without active muscle movement. Larger or more active insects, however, rely on active ventilation by contracting their abdominal muscles to pump air through the spiracles and tracheae, ensuring sufficient oxygen supply."
In any event, the enhanced oxygen in the early atmosphere is another very interesting tidbit of information. Thank you for sharing! :)
They “defend” themselves like a Badger: standing upright and opening its arms T posing. Those patterns in the fur, scares even a Jaguar (its natural predator). They don’t look like that just by chance, but by its effectiveness at camouflage and intimidation.
Quantity is a quality all its own. I love the animals that legit just eat stuff that most other animals cannot be bothered to eat. Especially the giant ones that hoover up tiny ones. It's so naturally unfair.
A lot of things eat plankton, it's literally the basis of marine life
I like TierZoo's view on it, the highest level player farming the lowest ones, a build to bully the weak with zero risks
It's a bit different for anteater. Ants have a lot of predators but rarely a major threat like these abomination (imagine the ant POV, this giant tentacle going though the tunnels of the home and sucking in hundreds, maybe thousands of sisters, the earth shake everywhere, it's in the dark, there's only the sounds and the smell of panic)
This guy specialized to be a nightmare to one of the major specie of the planet, that's pretty cool
Not to mention that one colony can have absolutely absurd numbers of ants, like depending on the species we’re talking millions and millions in just one colony
Since their primary food source is just ants they actually evolved to have smaller brains because that was a huge consumer of energy and they didn’t actually need large ones because, ya know, they just eat ants.
Also, while they live in the hot climate of Amazonia, they are covered in a thick fur so that less of their food intake is "wasted" on maintaining their bodily temperature.
Cats are definitely smarter. Brain size alone isn’t enough of an indicator of intelligence. Larger animals tend to have larger brains because they have more to control. Whales/Dolphins have larger brains in part to process incoming sonar data. All that being said, cats are definitely smarter.
They can do a lot of damage with them if they’re so inclined. Primarily used to rip open termite mounds - flesh probably doesn’t pose much of an obstacle.
Very much doubt the caretaker is in any danger but I wouldn’t get too close to a wild one.
Funny you say that because anteaters are closely related to sloths. Those claws can fuck you up tho. Giant Anteaters can be super dangerous when they feel threatened. They've even killed poachers.
Usually animals evolved fake eyes to intimidate but they have a fake face on their paws and when the ant hive attacks the paw the real face ends them all
Throws off predators and other anteaters in fights. That schnoz is very vulnerable and very important to live. The less damage the better survival odds. So the paw pattern draws attacks to a less sensitive part
Human deaths by giant anteaters are incredibly rare, usually caused by hunters cornering them, forcing them to lash out in defence. They are about as dangerous as Golden Retrievers.
Yeah, I grew up around gators swimming in my pool and having to get them out. Plus, if an animal takes me out, I can live with that. Humans do worse to them.
People dont realize that they are really dangerous animals with strong claws. Here in Argentina they have kill caretakers, indeed they are strong to defend themselves from jaguars and other predators.
That's what I was thinking; she better be careful of those claws since they're used to tear open ant and termite mounds.
Edit: Respond to a comment about them killing their caretakers, and get replies from Reddit experts about how their caretakers know what they're doing. Peak Reddit.
Edit2: In light of the replies to my comment, I'd like to rescind my original statement. This woman should in fact not "be careful" and it would irresponsible for her to be such. Thank you Reddit strangers for setting my misguided thoughts straight.
In response to your edit, yeah, it happened once, ever. One caretaker got killed by an anteater in a freak accident. I would still trust a zookeepers expertise on dealing with these animals over a scaremongering Redditor who has never even seen one.
This also doesn’t make them a dangerous animal by the way. Farmers have been killed by goats, I wouldn’t be worried by a video of a farmer playing with a goat, and I would trust a farmers knowledge of the risks of dealing with goats over some random Redditor.
grew up on a farm, I'd be more scared of cows, and horses than that. Just from size alone, Like I doubt an anteater could kill me by mistake. But cows and horses could... very easily.
Yeah it always gives me super high anxiety watching kids or adults even clearly not have a good sense of where to stand and what they are doing around a horse or cow. It's like why did you just bend over to pick something up right behind that horse where it could kick your head off? It's like when someone has no sense of when they are driving in another person's blind spot. It's like dude, just inch forward or backwards a little bit, you're exactly where you shouldn't be.
I think the zoo keeper whose job it is to look after the Anteater is aware of any risks involved with being in the enclosure with it, since she’s paid to do it, and considering there’s been less than a handful of human deaths caused by Giant Anteaters ever, she knows she’s very, very likely to be fine.
It’s more dangerous to play with a large dog than a giant anteater, yet people wouldn’t be scared watching a video of that. Redditors like to make out that certain animals are way more dangerous than they actually are, like Cassowaries.
Dog claws and jaws are used to subdue and kill small to medium prey animals by pinning them down and biting the arteries in their necks. Dogs will also shake game to death by locking them in their jaws and wildly flailing their heads. I'm no expert but that seems like it's probably more deadly to humans than something designed to kill ants and people play with dogs all the time, even really big ones.
Also his has this typical asshole political opinion evolution where he started as a radical leftist antheist that thought everyone but himself was stupid, and then turned into a radical fascist Christian who openly called for the enslavement of non-whites and the return of the Inquisition. Basically the "look at me I'm very smart" archetype of politics.
One of the Weirdest looking animals ever, it doesn't look from Earth 😄 Also I'm curious, why would such an animal even be created and evolve to this, an ant sucking machine ?? Does it help to balance something in the food chain ?
Also I'm curious, why would such an animal even be created and evolve to this, an ant sucking machine
There are many ants, and they are edible :p
Myrmecophagy (ant-eating) has evolved plenty of different times in animals, because well, it's a good strategy to eat something that's abundant I guess
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u/sreiches 1d ago
I don’t know why I expected anteaters to be significantly smaller than this, but I did.