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Updated: May 2, 2025
His gun almost burned his fingers, but faithful to his promise he kept it quiet. But yet and he cautioned his sister about this the gun would go off in spite of him, and probably register a master-stroke in sporting annals, if within range there should come a "tamandoa assa," a kind of large and very curious ant-eater.
"Well, what's that, then?" demanded the other, pointing full at the giraffe. "It's a bally ant-eater, sir," I replied, divining that I should be wise not to seem too obvious in naming the beast. "Well, well, so it is!" exclaimed the Tuttle person delightedly. "He's got the eye with him this time," said Cousin Egbert admiringly. "He's sure a wonder," said the other.
Once some bandy-legged, lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great Amazonian forest. And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far from us in those mysterious recesses.
Besides the great ant-eater, there is the smaller striped ant-eater, and the little ant-eater. There is a curious creature, called the quash, resembling the ichneumon, which possesses a peculiarly fetid smell, and is known for its powerful, lacerating teeth. There are several species, also, of the armadillo, distinguished as the three-banded, eight-banded, and nine-banded.
It was a shapeless creature, half porcupine, half ant-eater, a sort of unfinished animal belonging to the first stage of creation. A long glutinous extensible tongue hung out of his jaws in search of the ants, which formed its principal food. "It is an echidna," said Paganel. "Have you ever seen such a creature?" "It is horrible," replied Glenarvan.
It then draws its long, flexible tongue, covered with a glutinous saliva, over the swarms of insects who hurry forth to defend their dwelling. The scientific name of this great ant-eater is Myrmecophaga jubata. There are, however, several smaller ant-eaters, which are arborial that is, have their habitations in trees. Some are only ten inches long.
It stood up on its hind legs, with its snout in the air, and then stretched out its arms ready to strike any one who was imprudent enough to come within reach of them. Nothing could be more strange than the appearance of the animal in this defensive position. Suddenly a shot was fired, and the ant-eater crossed its fore legs and fell down dead.
Hilaire, in his indefatigable endeavors to trace out points of resemblance connecting together animals the most unlike in outward appearance, discovered, along the lower jaw of a young whale, certain traces of teeth, indicating a last effort on the part of nature to carry out her usual plan in furnishing the jaws of mammals; but, like the right-hand tooth of the narwhal, these vain attempts soon disappear, overgrown and lost in the tissue of the bone, so that the whale offers us a true type of an edentate, classable with the ant-eater, if one dared, and some people have dared, which by this time will not surprise you.
With a big skin, like that of the giant ant-eater, they had to squat on the ground; while the ducklings and wee chickens scuffled not only round the skin but all over it, grabbing the shreds and scraps of meat and catching flies. The fourth end of the quadrangle was formed by a corral and a big wooden scaffolding on which hung hides and strips of drying meat.
Destitute of beauty but not without use, the scaly ant-eater is frequently seen; but the most common of all the beasts is an odious species of large lizard, nearly three feet long, which resembles a flabby-skinned crocodile and feeds on carrion. Domestic fowls, goats, sheep and oxen, with the inevitable vulture, and an occasional eagle, complete the fauna.
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