10 Animals With Interesting Eating Habits

By Joy H. Montgomery, Animal Planet

It’s always chow time in the animal kingdom, and while some creatures just devour whatever they kill, others take a little more time to prepare a meal. In fact, some of their routines are very similar to the cooking techniques humans use. Although food processers, knives, blenders and canning tools aren’t in an animal’s culinary repertoire, they do employ some rather ingenious methods that seem to work just as well. From a bird that kabobs its food to one that has a very interesting food preservation technique, here are 10 of the most unusual animal gourmets, who prove they’re executive chefs in their own ways.

10. Giant Anteater

Although they might seem like vacuum cleaners, collecting ants like crumbs with one big sniff of their snout, it’s not quite that easy for giant anteaters. To capture a meal, first these mammals use their large claws to open a colony or tree trunk. From there, they must act quickly, because the tiny insects they’re feasting on don’t go down without a fight and could sting them.

What look like really long noses are actually anteaters’ jaws, so they aren’t snorting ants at all. Instead, they use their long tongues to collect their meals. According to the Smithsonian National Zoo (SNZ), giant anteaters’ tongues are 2 feet (.6 meters) long and their saliva acts as glue, which makes it easy to gather up their tiny victims quickly. Instead of teeth, anteaters have hard growths on the inside of their mouths that act like food processors, crushing insects as they are consumed. SNZ also reports some anteaters have been known to swallow small stones that continue the crushing process in their stomachs. At one sitting, giant anteaters can eat a few thousand insects within minutes, so they need all the kitchen aid they can get.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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Sharon E.

1:55PM PDT on Mar 21, 2012

fascinating.

send a green star

davis t.

2:20AM PST on Mar 6, 2012

interesting thanks

Abbe A.

6:53AM PDT on Sep 5, 2011

jane r.

8:11AM PDT on May 30, 2011

Interesting

Maria S.

3:09PM PDT on May 6, 2011

I enjoyed this interesting natural history lesson. Thanks for sharing.

Danielle H.

8:51AM PDT on May 3, 2011

AWESOME!

Mari M.

6:57PM PDT on Mar 27, 2011

Another interesting article, thanks for share :).

Rose B.

9:28AM PDT on Mar 27, 2011

Your comment about Egyptian vultures being the only birds to eat other birds eggs is absolutely false! Crows, bluejays, magpies, ravens, and possibly other birds like cowbirds will eat eggs of other birds. (The cowbird then deposits its own egg in the nest of other birds (parasitism)). Please don't mislead people with blanket statements on animal behaviors that aren't based on factual information.

Megan H.

8:48AM PDT on Mar 27, 2011

All of these articles are very interesting, but I live in Costa Rica and the animal that you're calling a giant anteater is actually a tamandua. Tamanduas are medium-sized anteaters that live in trees. I've been fortunate to see these guys on two occasions and I think they are adorable!
The giant anteater is indeed very large, and becoming increasingly rare, due to the usual things: destruction of its' habitat, and hunting. Unlike the tamandua, it lives in the grasslands, and it's almost the size of a large dog.
I think you do a nice job with this blog, though.

C. G.

4:34PM PDT on Mar 25, 2011

interesting!!