EDENTATES, OR TOOTHLESS MAMMALS
The animals which belong to this order are distinguished by having no
front teeth, while some of them have no teeth at all. And in many other
ways they are very curious and interesting creatures.
SLOTHS
The sloths live almost entirely in the trees, scarcely ever descending
to the ground. Not only that, they walk along underneath the branches
instead of upon them, suspending themselves by means of their great
hooked claws. So they actually spend almost the whole of their lives
upside down, with their backs toward the ground!
Yet they manage to travel along from bough to bough and from tree to
tree with some little speed, and when there is a high wind, so that the
branches are blown together, they will often wander for long distances.
And they never seem to get tired, although even during the night they
still hang suspended, just as they do during the day.
Sloths are very odd-looking creatures, and if you were to see one of
them hanging from a bough in its native forests you would find it rather
hard to believe that it was really an animal at all. For it looks much
more like a bundle of twigs overgrown with lichens. And the strange
thing is that it really is covered with lichens, which grow upon its
long, coarse hairs just as they do on the twigs of the trees. These give
the fur of the sloth a curious green appearance, which disappears soon
after death, so that one never sees it in a stuffed specimen in a
museum.
When a sloth is hungry, there is always plenty of food close by, for
it feeds only upon the leaves and fruits and the tender young shoots of
trees. And as there is plenty of moisture in these, it never requires to
drink at all.
There are two different groups of these singular animals, the first
consisting of those which have three toes on the front feet, and the
other of those which have only two. They are only found in the great
forests of Central and South America.
ANT-EATERS
Equally curious, although in quite a different way, are the ant-eaters,
or ant-bears, as they are sometimes called, the largest of which is the
great ant-eater of tropical America.
When fully grown this animal is about four feet long, without counting
the tail, while it is about two feet high at the shoulder. And it has
two strange peculiarities.
In the first place, its head is drawn out into a kind of long, narrow
beak, with the little round nostrils at the very tip. Then its tongue is
very long and worm-like, and is exceedingly sticky, so that when it is
swept to and fro among a number of ants, or other small insects,
hundreds of them adhere to it and are carried into the mouth. This is
the way in which the animal feeds, and if you go to look as the
ant-eater in a zoo you may often see it poke its long tongue down
between the boards at the bottom of its cage and bring up a cockroach
which had vainly been seeking a place of refuge.
The other peculiarity is the enormous size of the tail, the hair of
which is so long that when it is carried over the back it completely
covers the whole of the body, and makes the animal look just like a
haycock.
On its front feet the great ant-eater has very strong curved claws, with
which it tears open the nests of the insects on which it feeds. When it
is walking, of course, these claws are rather in its way, and it is
obliged to tread on the sides of its feet instead of on the soles. But
it manages, nevertheless, to shuffle along with some little speed,
although its movements are very far from being graceful. And sometimes
it uses them as weapons, for while it always tries to hug an enemy with
its powerful forearms and squeeze him to death, the claws often enter
his body and inflict a serious or even a fatal wound.
When a mother ant-eater has a little one to take care of, she always
carries it about on her back, and only allows it to get down just now
and then in order to feed.
There is another kind of ant-eater called the tamandua, which lives in
the trees and has a prehensile tail, just like that of a spider-monkey.
It is much smaller than the great ant-eater, and has a shorter and
stouter head, while its tail is scarcely as bushy as that of a Persian
cat. In color it is yellowish white, with a broad black patch which runs
from the neck to the hind quarters, and then widens out so as to cover
the whole of the flanks. The tip of the snout is also black. The animal,
like the preceding, is a native of tropical America.
THE ARMADILLOS
These are remarkable for having their bodies almost entirely covered by
a kind of natural armor, which consists of several bony plates growing
in the skin. There are three of these plates altogether, one covering
the head and shoulders, another protecting the back, while the third
clothes the hind quarters. And they are fastened together by means of
bony rings, so that when the animal rolls itself into a ball no gap is
left between them. You know what a millepede or thousand-legs looks like
when it rolls itself up, don't you? Well, imagine a thousand-legs as big
as a football, and you will have a very good idea of an armadillo.
These animals do not appear to be in the least inconvenienced by their
singular armor, and are able to run with considerable speed. They are
able to dig very well, too, by means of the large and powerful claws
with which their front feet are furnished, and it is said that if a man
on horseback sees an armadillo running by his side, and leaps to the
ground to secure it, he will nearly always find that it has succeeded in
burying itself before he is able to seize it.
The six-banded armadillo is so called because the horny plate upon its
back is broken up into six separate bands, all of which,
however, are closely linked together by bony rings. Sometimes it is
called the weasel-headed armadillo, because its head is thought to be
rather like that of a weasel. It is about sixteen inches in length,
without including the tail, and is found in Brazil and Paraguay.
The giant armadillo is very much larger, growing to the length of nearly
a yard from the tip of the snout to the root of the tail. It lives in
Brazil and Surinam, and feeds chiefly on ants and termites.
One of the most interesting of these creatures is the odd little
pichiciago, which is only about five inches long, and has a pink shield
upon its back, and fur of snowy white. It is found in the western parts
of the Argentine Republic, in open sandy places, but nowhere seems to be
very plentiful. It digs in a most curious manner. First of all, it
scratches away for a minute or two with its front feet, just to loosen
the soil. Then, supporting itself partly on its front feet and partly on
its tail, it uses the hind feet with the most astonishing rapidity, so
that it sinks down into the ground as if by magic. And, strange to say,
it does not leave its burrow open behind it when it has gone in, but
carefully closes the entrance, ramming the earth hard by means of the
bony shield at the end of its body.
PANGOLINS
Among other animals called ant-eaters are the pangolins, which are more
remarkable still. They are called scaly ant-eaters, because their heads,
bodies, and tails are covered with large, pointed oval scales, which
overlap one another very much like the tiles on the roof of a house.
When they are alarmed they coil themselves up into balls, just as most
of the armadillos do, and their muscles are so wonderfully strong that
it is quite impossible to unroll them.
Seven different kinds of pangolins are known, four of which live in
Africa, and three in Asia. They all feed chiefly upon ants and termites,
which they catch by breaking down the walls of their nests, and licking
up the insects with their long, worm-like tongues as they run about in
confusion. They live either in crevices among rocks, or else in burrows
which they dig for themselves in the ground. Sometimes these burrows are
of very great size, that of the Indian pangolin often running for ten or
twelve feet downward into the ground, and having at the end a
sleeping-chamber at least five or six feet in diameter.
When a pangolin comes to the edge of an overhanging rock, and wishes to
descend to the ground below, it coils itself up into a ball and then
rolls over, alighting on the edges of its scales just as a hedgehog does
upon its spines. In this way it can drop ten or fifteen feet without
receiving any injury.
The different species of pangolin vary a good deal in size, but the
largest of them, the giant pangolin, is between four and five feet long
when fully grown, including the tail.
THE AARD-VARK
This name means earth-pig, and has been given to the animal by the Boers
of South Africa, because in general appearance it is rather like a pig.
But then it has ears like those of a hare, and a muzzle and tongue like
those of an ant-eater, while all its feet are furnished with long and
stout claws. So that altogether it is a very odd-looking creature.
The aard-vark feeds entirely upon termites and ants, and is nearly
always to be found where the nests of those insects are plentiful. It
digs with great rapidity, and is said to be able to burrow into the
ground faster than a man armed with a spade can dig it out. So it has no
difficulty in tearing a hole through the walls of the termites' and
ants' nests, and then it licks out the insects in thousands.
During the daytime the aard-vark is hardly ever to be seen, for it lies
fast asleep in its burrow, which it seldom leaves till after sunset.
Before digging this burrow, it mostly scoops out quite a number of
half-finished ones, scraping a hole two or three feet in depth, and then
leaving it and beginning on another. Why it does this nobody seems to
know.
In former days it was thought that the lion and the elephant were in the
habit of hunting the aard-vark together, the elephant flooding its
burrow, by means of a stream of water from his trunk, and the lion
pouncing upon the animal as it ran out.
When fully grown the aard-vark is rather over six feet in total length,
about one third of which is occupied by the tail. The body is very
heavily and clumsily built, and the back is a good deal arched in the
middle. In color it is yellowish brown, with a tinge of red on the back
and sides, while the lower surface is rather paler.