By jgoldman on August 2, 2010. But wait, you say. Anteaters aren t pets! Well, I didn t think so either. But Salvador Dali had a pet anteater. And that s good enough for me.
Figure 1: Salvador Dali taking his pet anteater for a stroll. (Source)
The Giant Anteater,
Myrmecophaga tridactyla, only eats ants and termites, making it a
myrmecophage. (Hey, Alex Wild, now I get what Myrmecos means!) In 1984, a researcher named Kent Redford was interested in the foraging behaviors of the giant anteater, and the relationship between these anteaters and their prey, colonies of highly social insects. So Redford went to Brazil to study a group of anteaters at the Brasilia Zoo, as well as in the wild at Emas National Park.