At last…a Giant Anteater

Who amongst those of us of a certain age can forget the film and photographs of a Giant Anteater and of the visit to Edward ‘Tiny’ McTurk's ranch in BBC’s Zoo Quest to Guiana in 1955 or in the book of that name by David Attenborough?

Sadly, when we went to the McTurk’s Karanambu Ranch* in 2006 there were no Giant Anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) around, although further north some of our party going birdwatching one way (while we were similarly occupied in the opposite direction) did see one crossing the path through the forest.

In the right (for anteaters) part of South America again in September would we see eventually see a Giant Anteater in the wild for sufficiently long to appreciate these fantastic animals?

This one was at Pouso Alegre, a lodge at the end of a turning from the Transpantaneira Highway between Poconé and Porto Jofre in the northern Pantanal of Brazil. We were on a Naturetrek Tour entitled ‘Just Jaguars’ but we saw a lot more than just jaguars (more on them in a later post). Our personal list of mammals seen totalled 24 species (the number for the group as a whole was 26) with 6 reptiles and 156 birds. A great trip led by Marcos Felix.

*I was sorry to see that Diane McTurk, our host at Karanambu and known for her work on rescuing, rearing and rehabilitating giant otters orphaned by hunters as well as campaigning for conservation and promoting tourism, died in December 2016 aged 84.