Giant Anteater Enjoys Dinner With His Enormous Tongue
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Malgorzata Zdziechowska
Occurred in 2020 / Curitiba, Brazil
Info from Licensor: "Giant anteaters are known for their long and fast tongues. Rescued orphan anteater Joao who is a few months old, presents to you his amazing tongue.
The tongue of the Giant Anteater is slender, worm-like, and at around 60 cm, as long as the head when extruded. The small circular mouth is completely toothless. There are small, delicate bristles on the lips and nose. After the Giant Anteater has broken into a nest or ripped open a rotten log, it uses its tongue to pick up prey. A unique hyoid muscle arrangement enables it to project the tongue with great speed and precise positional control. Tongue retraction has been timed at up to 160 cycles per minute The tongue is coated in saliva, produced by enlarged submaxillary and parotid salivary glands, and small insects stick to it. Anteaters lack teeth, so the insects are swallowed whole. The hyoid apparatus assists with ingestion. The muscularized pyloric part of the stomach grinds up the ants and termites; their chitinous exoskeletons, including the enlarged mandibles of soldiers, are not digested."
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