ainawgsd:

Giant Anteaters are so cool! The toothless skull of a Giant anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, is almost tubular and may be 30 cm long; its tongue may be 60 cm long-double the length of its skull! 

Anteaters skulls are disproportionately long for their bodies, with very slim completely toothless jaws and no zygomatic arches. Their mouths are just a tube through which a very long tongue extrudes to pick up termites and ants. The tongue is covered with minute backward spines coated in viscous saliva in which the prey is trapped. Their salivary glands are relatively larger that any other mammal. Anteaters ingest a large amount of food by a simplified and minimal jaw movement, which allows the tongue to move in and out very rapidly and the animals to swallow nearly continuously.

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