This is a quite a while ago, when we were going to dip our Ganesha idol, the ritual followed at the end of the Ganesha Chaturthi festivities. Once we reached the pond, while taking out the idol, we look at the car seat and we find ants — the red ones — all over it. We were thinking about how we drive the whole colony out of our car and I wittily suggested, we should get an anteater. A win-win formula!

Well, this blog is going to talk about edentates (armadillos, pangolins and others). Their diet is special as they feed on insects and termites. Isn’t it strange?

Some species posses a strange defensive technique like rolling themselves into a ball when a predator is around.This is common among all edentates. Also, armadillos can walk underwater and are also capable of floating on water. Of course, small anteaters can also escape into a pit. Another peculiar aspect of armadillos is that they are the only wild animals, other than humans, who could get leprosy! Nothing to worry — just don’t cuddle or eat them.

Giant anteaters have sharp claws for defense and breaking open anthills. Pangolins don’t need to break open the anthills that often as their long tongues could enter the anthill holes all the way down. A pangolin’s tongue measures somewhere around 40 cm!

There are some animals that are not edentates but feast on ants. There is a hyena species — the aardwolf — whose food menu consists only of ants and termites, while the other hyena species are meat eaters. Talking about hyenas, they do have features like dogs, but aren’t related to dogs. They are more like cats, but do not belong to cat family. They are included in the suborder of cats like mongooses, civets etc.