Bananas for Scale
Giant Anteater

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Giant Anteater

A 60 cm tongue and no teeth at all/Large Land Animals

The giant anteater has a 60 cm tongue that can flick in and out up to 150 times per minute, covered in sticky saliva to trap ants and termites. It eats about 35,000 insects per day but never destroys a nest completely, always leaving enough for the colony to rebuild. Its claws are so powerful that even jaguars avoid confrontations. Despite having no teeth, it has a 2-foot-long skull.

Measurements

Body length (head to tail)2.1 m
7Celery stalks
4 thousandthsMall of America lengths
1.4 tenthsGarden hose lengths
Tongue length6 tenths m
4.3 tenthsFoosball tables
6Donut diameters
4.1 tenthsDanny DeVitos
Weight40 kg
1.4 millionGrains of rice
36.4 septillionDNA base pairs
Claw length1 tenths m
14.3 millionChip transistor gates
12,500Red blood cells
4.1 tenthsEnvelope lengths

Front claws

Tongue flick rate2.5 Hz
25Toddler questions
8.3 tenthsJump rope turns

150 per minute

Running speed8.9 m/s
1.2 thousandthsOrbiting satellites
29.7Conveyor belts
3.3Casual joggers

About 32 km/h

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