Central American Silky Anteater, also called pygmy anteater, cyclopes dorsalis

May 3, 2023

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Creatures of Belize

A place to share knowledge and pictures of the fauna in Belize. The important thing here is sharing knowledge, not necessarily how pretty the photo looks. Better an adequate photo showing distinguishing features and a comment telling us the location, than a beautiful picture we cannot identify from.

Central American Silky Anteater, also called pygmy anteater, cyclopes dorsalis

Amazing find at Copal Tree Lodge. Pygmy anteater/silky anteater. Smallest of the anteaters. Its total length is between 36 and 45 centimeters. It is nocturnal and arboreal, and feeds on large amounts of ants in the trees, between 100 and 8000 ants a day.

This tiny critter curled up into a ball in the tree is one you may not have ever heard of, in fact, it's one of the rarest mammals of Belize, the silky anteater.

Silky anteaters are the smallest of the anteater family, weighing hardly over a half of a pound and measuring only 16 inches long - half of that being their prehensile tail. They are found from Southern Mexico all the way down to Brazil and Bolivia, as well as here in Belize. They have 2 clawed toes on each foreleg as opposed to our northern anteater, who has 4 claws, and they comsume thousands of ants and termites with their long sticky tongue.

Silky anteaters are nocturnal and strictly arboreal, rarely ever decending to the ground. The trees, and particularly the kapok trees, with their silky, fibrous seed pods, provide cameoflage to better hide from their predators, the harpy eagle, hawk-eagle, and spectacled owl.

Silky anteaters give birth to a single young at a time, which they will place in a hole lined with leaves in a tree. Both the male and the female will feed their young by regurgitating semi-digested insects for the baby to eat. The male will sometimes even carry the baby around on his back.

Though the IUCN has the silky anteater listed as 'Least Concern' based on their population size, in 2017 the single species was divided into 7 unique species of silky anteater. It will be interesting to find out in coming years how the species we find in Belize, the Central American Silky Anteater (Cyclopes dorsalis), is fairing and if their IUCN population status will need changing to better protect their species from extinction.

Top four photographs by Avianwatcher Belize

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