Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/202

 The habits of the Myrmecophaga jubata are now pretty well known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the Ygapó, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species the Tamanduá bandeira, or the Banner Ant-eater, the term banner being applied in allusion to the curious colouration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe half-gray and half-black, which gives it some resemblanoe to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws are much elongated, and its gait is very awkward. It lives on the ground, and feeds on termites, or white ants, the long claws being employed to pull in pieces the solid hillocks made by the insects, and the long flexible tongue to lick them up from the crevices. All the other species of this singular genus are arboreal. I met with four species altogether. One was the Myrmecophaga tetradactyla; the two others, more curious and less known, were very small kinds, called Tamanduá-i. Both are similar in size—ten inches in length, exclusive of the tail—and in the number of the claws, having two of unequal length to the anterior feet, and four to the hind feet. One species is clothed with grayish-yellow silky hair; this is of rare occurrence. The other has a fur of a dingy brown colour, without silky lustre. One was brought to me alive at Caripí, having been caught by an Indian clinging motionless inside a hollow tree. I kept it in the house about twenty-four hours. It had a moderately long snout, curved downwards, and extremely small eyes. It remained nearly all the time