TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A local museum is featuring a very special guest who just happens to have a two foot long tongue and eat about 30,000 ants and termites a day.
The latest addition to the Tallahassee Museum's Guest Animal Exhibit is a Giant Anteater.
Anteaters are related to armadillos and this one is 17 years old and 90 pounds.
She has no teeth, a long hard snout, and a two foot long tongue that starts all the way at her sternum. It's also sticky with spines on it, so ants don't stand a chance.
The female anteater is on loan from a zoo in Melbourne, Florida and in her leisure time she loves to push the ball around, swim and, eat avocados.
The museum's assistant animal curator, Suzie Buzzo, says one of the many reasons why this exotic animal is so unique is their sense of smell.
"She has a great sense of smell. It is 40 times better than a humans, so she doesn't really have good eye site and can't really see very well but she can sniff things out," said Buzzo.
Buzzo says in the wild, giant anteaters have a lot of the same problems as animals in Florida, like habitat destruction and too much development and that it's important that we help protect them.
The guest animal exhibit featuring the giant anteater opens to the public on Friday.
