Along their course these ducts are provided with a sphincter muscle, which squeezes the secretion towards the external orifice into the mouth-cavity. The stomach is somewhat gizzard-like. The intestine has no caecum.[1]
The Anteater's great claws are not only serviceable in tearing up the ground to get at its food; armed with them he does not fear, as Mr. Waterton remarked, "the fatal pressure of the serpent's fold or the teeth of the famished jaguar." An Anteater, too, is more than a match for a big dog, and will rip open its belly with the claws while the dog is vainly trying to make an impression with its teeth upon the shaggy hair.
Tamandua is a smaller animal than Myrmecophaga, and, as has been stated, is arboreal; associated with this habit is a prehensile tail. Like the last genus, Tamandua has a rudimentary clavicle, this bone being well developed in the little Cycloturus.
Fig. 92.—Skull of Anteater (Myrmecophaga). Lateral view, al.sph, Alisphenoid; cond, condyle of mandible; cor, coronoid process of mandible; ex.oc, exoccipital; ext.aud, external auditory meatus; fr, frontal; ju, jugal; lcr, lachrymal; max, maxilla; nas, nasal; occ.cond, occipital condyle; pal, palatine; par, parietal; p.max, premaxilla; s.oc, supraoccipital; sq, squamosal; ty, tympanic. (From Parker and Haswell's Zoology).
The skull of the Anteater[2] is very long and low; the fore-part is tubular, and there appear to be no traces of teeth. The premaxilla is very small; the zygomatic arch is imperfect, and does not reach the squamosal behind. A curious feature of this genus, which it shares with some Dolphins and other Whales, is that the pterygoid bones develop palatine plates which meet each other in the middle line, and thus shift the opening of the
