Anteater

Anteaters are the four extant mammal species in the suborder Vermilingua (meaning "worm tongue"), commonly known for eating ants and termites. The individual species have other names in English and other languages. Together with the sloths, they are within the order Pilosa. The name "anteater" is also commonly applied to the unrelated aardvark, numbat, echidnas, pangolins, and some members of the Oecobiidae, although they are not closely related to them. Extant species are the giant anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla, about long including the tail; the silky anteater Cyclopes didactylus, about long; the southern tamandua or collared anteater Tamandua tetradactyla, about long; and the northern tamandua Tamandua mexicana of similar dimensions. The name anteater refers to the species' diet, which consists mainly of ants and termites. Anteater has also been used as a common name for a number of animals that are not in Vermilingua, including the echidnas, numbat, pangolins, and aardvark. Anteaters are also known as antbears, although this is more commonly used as a name for the aardvark. The word tamandua comes from Portuguese, which itself borrowed it from the Tupí tamanduá, meaning "ant hunter". In Portugese, tamanduá is used to refer to all anteaters; in Spanish, only the two species in the genus Tamandua are known by this name, with the giant anteater and silky anteater being called oso hormiguero and cíclope, respectively. All four species are also known by a number of indigenous names. List of pilosans Anteaters are part of the Xenarthra superorder, a once diverse group of mammals that occupied South America while it was geographically isolated from the invasion of animals from North America, with the other two remaining animals in the family being the sloths and the armadillos. At one time, anteaters were assumed to be related to aardvarks and pangolins because of their physical similarities to those animals, but these similarities have since been determined to be not a sign of a common ancestor, but of convergent evolution.