This week, we have…

• A fun fact inspired by Metazooa

• Answers to last week's games

• Reader survey

Could anteaters be man's next best friend?

Some animals are stranger than fiction. Have you ever looked at an anteater (Metazooa animal #615)? Like, really looked? If you do, you will see several distinctive features that make them so lovably bizarre. Everything about their furry, lanky bodies serves an adaptive purpose, although each purpose is not always obvious at first glance. 

First are their long snouts, which house sticky tongues up to 50 cm long. The snouts are great for poking around debris all day, and the tongues for - you guessed it - eating ants. They can probe deep into the maze-like tunnels of an ant colony and scoop up prey.

Then there are the large claws which are so long and curved that you might mistakenly think an anteater is walking around on its wrists all the time (they’re actually walking on their knuckles, with their claws curled upwards). These claws are designed for opening up termite and ant nests, and they’re very effective - anteaters eat up to 30,000 ants and termites a day!

Giant anteaters also have very bushy tails that serve as sunshades. That’s like walking around with an umbrella stuck to your tailbone at all times for emergencies. Their tails also serve as blankets on a cold night, and camouflage from predators such as jaguars and pumas. 

Anteaters are a biological oddity - a large mammal that specializes in feeding on tiny prey. These adept trackers do most of their hunting by smell rather than sight or sound, possessing olfactory abilities 40 times more powerful than humans. While not as impressive as dogs, whose sense of smell is 10,000 times better than ours, anteaters excel at pest control and would be invaluable allies against termite infestations. Move over dogs - these termite munchers might just give you a run for your money as man's best friend!

Learn more: National Geographic, Smithsonian's National Zoo, Discover Wildlife

Trivia

Answers to last week's games

Monday, March 31 to Sunday, April 6.

Linxicon

The following are the shortest paths from last week:

• #413 funny → comedy → director → administrator

• #414 tap → touch → tangible → real → really

• #415 terms → meaning → meant → supposed

• #416 many → lots → abundance → organism → organic

• #417 crucial → important → principle → cause

• #418 properly → creatively → creativity → generate

• #419 depression → happy → happily → surprisingly

• #420 Play now!

Elemingle

• #68 Rutherfordium

• #69 Xenon

• #70 Cesium

• #71 Holmium

• #72 Curium

• #73 Iodine

• #74 Nickel

• #75 Play now!

Forgeous

Play Forgeous for Apr 7