Behavioral and eating habits

In the wild, tamandua baby travels with the mother till they are 1 year old.They always travel on their backs, so in our case, she always goes for the head- as close to her mother's fir.... i guess.
She moves to our shoulders when she needs to clean herself or scratch and then immediately moves back to the head.
She goes on and off to the orange tree and back to my head.
Eating requirements: termites and non-stinging ants, but since they are hemophiliacs they need vitamin K to aid clotting. They also need good source of Potassium, but low level of Vit A and E.  Based on the info that we obtained from different sources here is the diet that we are following: eating termites and ants each day for a couple of hours and in between mixture of: 2 cups powdered dry cat food, 1/2cup of flax seed, 1/2 cup red beans and 1/4 cup of oats.  All those ingredients are powdered and then mixed with watermelon, banana and papaya juice and water.  Those days when she doesn't get too many ants, i squeeze 1/3 of tomato to aid with acidity. To prevent internal parasites, we add papaya seeds by pureeing them with the other fruits. I also add to her diet some  apple, pineapple, avocado and cucumber, to make sure that she gets enough different vitamins from the natural sources.


Tamanduas eat a lot of termites, but do not destroy the termites nests, they eat just enough so that the termite colony would have a chance to rebuild the tunnels, and meanwhile tamandua moves to the next location. Always looking between the cracks of the rocks, and wood they build an internal map of the termites nests. Tamanduas do not have any teeth and therefore their tongues are designed to have sticky saliva as well as backward growing hairs that help them to pick the food and quickly deliver it to the tiny mouth and straight into the stomach.



as you cans see, using sharp claws they open a termite nest to reach for the center. When they are small they cannot do it, but by the age of year old they have no problem dealing with that size of termites nest.








Holes made in the termites nests while she was eating.

While looking for food she stands very comforably on her back feet and uses her tail as a support.