Weird Zoology
We have some famous animals at the Santa Barbara Zoo – perhaps the best known might be Gemina, the crooked-necked giraffe. While she’s unusual within her own species, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the weirdness inherent in normal individuals happening to belong to a species that has adapted perfectly to its environment, food sources, and predators.
Giant anteaters, for example, are some of the strangest looking creatures in the world. Their long snouts, ungainly arms, and enormous fluffy tails give them a very unusual appearance – but each of these features has a use. The tail, draped over the anteater’s body, becomes an umbrella in inclement weather. Their snouts are ideal for poking into ant and termite nests, and a two-foot-long tongue, coated in sticky saliva to prevent bugs from escaping, only makes this adaptation more versatile. Anteaters’ arms are deceptively powerful, with long claws at the end which they use to rip apart rotten logs that might contain an insect nest.
These claws are what give the giant anteater its distinctive gait – these animals walk on their knuckles, folding the claws under so as to keep them out of the way. And they have one other nifty biological trick up their sleeves, one which any woman might envy – female anteaters can delay the implantation of embryos after they’ve already mated, allowing them to essentially choose when to be pregnant. Alan Varsik, Director of Animal Programs & Conservation at the zoo, said that this is a fairly recent discovery. Most animals have not yet been studied enough to understand all of their biological and behavioral quirks, and this is one which is still under investigation.
