Life for a giant anteater starts when a male and female participate in sexual reproduction, typically in the fall.  The egg is fertilized inside the female, and after a period of about 190 days, it gives birth, standing on its hind legs, to a well developed offspring.  The female gives birth only to one offspring at at time and no sets of twin baby giant anteaters have ever been recorded.
    Shortly after birth, the baby anteater uses its well developed front claws to climb onto its mothers back.  It will stay on its mothers back for a whole year, only getting down to nurse and eventually to feed on ants.  One to two years after birth, the mother and the baby split up and for the most part never come in contact with each other again.   In fact, giant anteaters are a very solitary species and the only times you ever see them together are when they are mating and when the mother and baby are together.

     Giant anteaters, through their average 26 year life span, grow to be about 2 feet high at the shoulders and about 7 feet in length.  Their tails can get to be over 2 feet long and is always carried out behind the rest of the body.  Their front claws grow up to 6 inches and are used for defense and feeding

A Day in the life of a Giant Anteater

     This morning I woke up early, but didn't feel like doing anything right away.  After a couple of hours I started to get hungry and began my search for some food.  I found a couple of nests  full of unsuspecting ants and termites, and boy did they taste very good.  After my meal, I went to rest because waddling to find food was too tiring.  After about 4 hours of resting, I needed to go for a little walk.  On my walk, I stumbled across a huge ant nest that I just could not pass up.  I dug into it, ripped it open and found the jackpot.  There must have been a at least 900 ants in there.  Its a good thing that under my rough, coarse fur there is a thick layer of skin because those ants were not happy and tried to bite me, but that didn't work very well for them.  I quickly gobbled them up and after just about 5 minutes of feeding, I moved on in search of another place to rest.  After about 3 hours of walking and searching for another place to rest I found a nice pile of shrubs to rest in.  Again I went to sleep and woke up 4 hours later to find a snack before I go to sleep for the night.  I searched and searched and eventually found a small apple to that I ripped open and ate.  It was a nice snack and now I am on my way to bed for the night because it has been such a long and hard day, but I am ready to do it all over again tomorrow!