"Like a lawyer," says Professor Owen, "the tongue is the chief organ by which this animal obtains its livelihood in its natural habitat. The warmer latitudes of South America, to which part of the world the Ant-Bear is peculiar, abound in forests and luxuriant vegetation; the insects of the ant and termite tribes that subsist on wood, recent or decaying, equally abound. With one link in the chain of organic independencies is interlocked another; and as the surplus vegetation sustains the surplus insect population, so a peculiar form of mammalian life finds the requisite conditions of existence in the task of restraining the undue multiplication of the wood-consuming insects."
The number of male Ant-eaters is supposed to be considerably smaller than that of the females, which circumstance favours the inference that the extinction of the species, like those of the edentata in general, is determined upon. [6]
Large as the Ant-Bear is in comparison with the animals on which it naturally feeds, there appear to have been still larger Ant-Bears in the old times of South America. Fossil remains of nearly allied quadrupeds have been detected in both the fresh-water deposits and bone-caves of the post-pliocene period in Buenos Ayres and Brazil.
In examining the fossil remains has been found evidence that the nervous matter destined to put in action the muscular part of the tongue was equal to half of that nervous matter which influences the whole muscular system of a man. No other known living animal offers any approximation to the peculiar proportions of the lingual nerves of the fossil animal in question except the Great Ant-eater; but the size of the animal indicated by the fossil was three times that of our Ant-eater. For this strange monster, thus partially restored from the ruins of a former world, Professor Owen proposes the name of Glossotherium, which signifies tongue-beast.
Evidence of such a creature has been given by Dr. Lund, the Danish naturalist, resident in Brazil: among the fossil remains here (limestone caves of the province Minas) he discovered traces of the Great Ant-eater, which, however, are too imperfect to enable us to determine more accurately its relation to existing species. The fragments indicate an animal the size of an ox! Were the insect prey of these antediluvian Ant-eaters correspondingly gigantic?
Two circumstances very remarkable were observed in the Zoological Society's Great Ant-eater: the hinge-like manner in which the animal worked its tail when it had laid itself down, throwing it over the whole of its body and enveloping itself completely; and the peculiar vibratory motion of the long vermiform tongue when protruded from the mouth in search of food. The tongue is not shot forth and retracted, like that of the chameleon, but protruded gradually, vibrating all the time, and in the same condition withdrawn into the mouth.
Another species of Ant-eater is the Tamandua, much inferior in size to the Great Ant-Bear, being scarcely so large as a good sized cat, whilst the other exceeds the largest greyhound in length. The Tamandua inhabits the thick primæval forests of tropical America, and is never found on the ground, but exclusively in trees, where it lives upon termites, honey, and, according to Azara, even bees, which in those countries form their hives among the loftiest branches of the forest; and having no sting, they are more readily despoiled of their honey than their congeners of our own climate. When about to sleep it hides its muzzle in the fur of its breast, falls on its belly, letting its fore-feet hang down on each side, and wrapping the whole tightly round with its tail. The female, as in the Great Ant-eater, has but two pectoral mammæ, and produces but a single cub at a birth, which she carries about with her on her shoulders for the first three or four months. Tamandua is the Portuguese name; the French and English call it fourmiller and Little Ant-Bear.
The latter are the names of a still smaller species, which does not exceed the size of the European squirrel. Its native country is Guayana and Brazil. It is called in Surinam kissing-hand, as the inhabitants pretend it will never eat, at least when caught, but that it only licks its paws in the same manner as the bear; that all trials to make it eat have proved in vain, and that it soon dies in confinement. Von Sack, in a voyage to Surinam, had two of these Ant-eaters which would not eat eggs, honey, meat, or ants; but when a wasps'-nest was brought they pulled out the nymphæ and ate them eagerly, sitting in the posture of a squirrel. Von Sack showed this phenomenon to many of the inhabitants of Surinam, who all assured him that it was the first time they had ever known that species of animal to take any nourishment.
Von Sack describes his Ant-eaters as often sleeping all the day long curled together, and fastened by their prehensile tails to one of the perches of the cage. When touched they raised themselves on their hind-legs, and struck with their fore-paws at the object which disturbed them, like the hammer of a clock striking a bell, with both paws at the same time, and with a great deal of force. They never attempted to run away, but were always ready for defence when attacked.
The discovery of the true nature of the food of this species is particularly desirable, and may enable us to have the animal brought alive to this country, a thing which we believe has not been attempted; and which, if attempted, has certainly never succeeded. To procure or carry ants during a long sea-voyage is impracticable, but the larvæ of wasps can be obtained in any quantity, and will keep for months; so that the most serious difficulty to the introduction of the little Ant-eater being thus removed, it would only require to be protected from the effects of a colder climate, which may be as easily done in its case as in that of other South America mammalia.