anteater

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a toothless mammal of tropical America with a long snout and tongue, specialized for feeding on ants and termites

   The giant anteater swept its long tongue through the broken termite mound.

2. 2
   noun

   any of several unrelated ant-eating mammals informally given this name, such as the echidna or numbat

   Early naturalists sometimes called the spiny echidna an anteater because of its diet.

Formed from ant + eater. In its strict zoological sense it names members of the Central and South American family Myrmecophagidae. The descriptive name has also been applied loosely to several unrelated mammals that evolved a similar ant- and termite-eating diet.

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