In the gallery above, Tammy is being weighed at London Zoo. You may recognize that Tammy looks like a giant anteater – the only problem is, Tammy only weighs 6.8 kilograms, much lighter and smaller than an ordinary anteater (slide to see difference). So, who is Tammy? 

Tammy is a southern tamandua. The tamandua is a close kin of the giant anteater. Like the giant anteater, the tamandua can only be found in Central and South America. And they both feed on ants and termites. For this special diet, they both have a long, sticky tongue but no teeth. But the tamandua lives on trees; it cannot run fast on land like the giant anteater and it has a hairless tail to clench the branches, instead of the giant anteater's hairy big tail. 

Tamanduas and giant anteaters belong to the same order Pilosa, which means they are closely related to sloths. There is one more member in their ant-eating family, who does not look like them at all: 

This is the silky anteater, or the pygmy anteater. It is the smallest in the anteater family. Similar to the tamandua, the silky anteater also lives on the tree. 

(All pictures via VCG. Cover photo via VCG, designed by CGTN's Jia Jieqiong. Edited by An Qi)

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