Science Confirms: Giant Anteaters Can Kill People

[xchrom]

http://www.livescience.com/47113-anteaters-can-kill-people.html

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This giant anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, was photographed in Manaus, Brazil, as part of a camera trap study.
Credit: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia

They have poor vision, bad hearing and no teeth. And yet, anteaters can be deadly.

In a new case report, scientists detail a gruesome anteater attack that left one hunter dead in northwestern Brazil, just two years after another man was killed in a similar confrontation with one of the long-nosed creatures. While such incidents are rare and anteaters usually avoid contact with humans, the attacks should serve as a warning to humans encroaching on anteater turf, the authors wrote in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine this month.

Giant anteaters, which live in savannah-like fields in South America and Central America, are the largest of the four living anteater species, growing up to 7 feet (213 centimeters) long in adulthood. They have four sharp claws on both of their forelimbs that they can use to quarry anthills and termite mounds — and apparently, to inflict fatal wounds on humans. [In Photos: The World's 10 Deadliest Animals]

The creatures assume a standing position when they feel threatened, sometimes referred to as an "anteater's hug." On the Internet, anteaters standing messiah-like with arms outstretched have become the benign stars of memes. But in the wild, an anteater posed like it wants a hug is really throwing up a red flag.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Habitat loss. Sad. eom

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. yes. :( n/t

[TIMETOCHANGE]

2. Fail to respect nature at your own risk. nt

NT

[eppur_se_muova]

3. It happened to Farnsworth, it could happen to you !

[packman]

4. I was walking in my garden the other day

when I saw an ant hill with,apparently, music coming out of it. Curious, I bent down and heard them singing "There’s a kind of hush , All over the world tonight , All over the world". Amazed, I called my neighbor over to hear them and he said, "Shit, that's nothing. They're Carpenter ants."


I expect in the very near future we are going to see a film "Attack of the Ant Eaters" or "Anteaternado".

[BB1]

5. I read about this. googled some videos

of Giant Anteaters in fights. Those claws are gigantic and they will drive off a jaguar!

[Helen Borg]

7. And then what?

It stabs you with its proboscis?

[pscot]

8. Anteaters need love too

[IrishAyes]

9. Who'd've ever thunk it?

Bothering animals in the wild makes about as much sense as sayng, "Oh look, there's a cute little bear cub - he must be lost, let's pick him up and take him home with us." I'll never forget the guy who styled himself 'Grizzly Man'. He and his girlfriend long ago got turned into grizzly scat.

The only exception I ever made was with a young bird with an obviously broken wing, and even then I pulled the bill of my cap low over my eyes in case the parents decided to defend the baby they couldn't rescue themselves. Too many times I discovered a nest in a tree the hard way: from bird talons because I wandered too close to a nest I didn't even see.

[gtar100]

10. I'm not so sure. I think we need a larger study group.

This really needs more empirical data.

[reACTIONary]

11. You volunteering? :) (nt)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. ...

[PoliticAverse]

13. While small anteaters apparently just need love...

[Kaleva]

14. The people who've been killed by Giant Ant Eaters confirm this too.

[Nihil]

15. Hurray for anteaters and their "Stand Your Ground" laws!

Clue for the witless: Don't go hunting things without expecting to be killed in turn.

The anteaters don't often win but I'll cheer for them every time.