Date: 01/01/2011

Giant Anteater radio-tracking in the Brazillian Pantanal.

With its stange appearance this animal is a charasmatic large mammal species from this area of Brazil. It is an important flag-ship species for the local ecosystems, which include light forest, grassland and wetlands. Behaviour and ecology of the Giant Anteater in the wild is practically unknown. Land use at the survery site of Fazenda Barranco Alto in the southern Pantanal, which has a wide variety of habitats, is cattle ranching and eco-tourism with almost 50% of the area given over to wildlife conservation.

The project is being conducted by Lydia Mocklinghoff from the Zoological Reasearch Museum Koenig in Bonn, Germanay with cooperation from the Brazillian Projeto Tamandua and the Federal Univeristy of Mato Grosso.

Camera-traps photograph any animal that passes by, and radio-collars with GPS transmitters are being used to record the movements of individual animals for a whole year. This study of behaviour, ecology, habitat use, population density and ranges will provide the data required for the conception of an effective conservation stragey for these amazing animals.

Hamerton Zoo Park is delighted to be able to support the project with a radio-GPS collar which will be fitted to a selected Anteater and become activated in May 2011. Funds raised from our 'Animal Contact' schemes allow us to help with such vital research.

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  Giant Anteater

  Young adult Giant Anteater at the forest edge in the Brazillian Pantanal
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  Giant Anteater, close up of snout

  These animals are food specialists. Their toothless snouts house a long sticky tongue which they use to collect up to 30,000 ants and termites each day
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  Giant Anteater with baby

  Photographed on the open Pampas grassland of the Pantanal. A single baby (very rarely twins) is carried on its mothers back for up to nine months.