Giant Anteater Born at Brookfield Zoo

Submitted by the Chicago Zoological Society. Photos by Jim Schulz/Chicago Zoological Society.

The Chicago Zoological Society, which operates Brookfield Zoo, is thrilled to announce the birth of a giant anteater on May 18.

This is the first giant anteater birth at Brookfield Zoo. The one-month-old female pup and her mom Tulum may be seen in Tropic World: South America on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.

Tulum and her mate, Lupito, arrived at Brookfield Zoo in 2014, and animal care staff hoped that they would breed. In anticipation of an impending pregnancy, one of the zoo’s animal care staff traveled to Nashville Zoo, whose staff has extensive experience with anteater care and management. There he worked with staff to learn successful breeding techniques. These include training a pregnant female to “station” while an ultrasound is being performed, managing the animals’ diet, and monitoring a pup’s developmental progress.

“The collaborative efforts and sharing of information among Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) member institutions benefits all the species we care for in the zoo profession,” said Bill Zeigler, senior vice president of animal programs for the Society. “Among our staff here at Brookfield Zoo, we have experts on particular species, and it is valuable to be able to exchange knowledge and husbandry practices among zoos to ensure we are providing the best medical, environmental, and nutritional needs for the animals in our care.”

With knowledge gained at Nashville Zoo, veterinary and animal care staff at Brookfield Zoo administered ultrasounds at least once a week to first estimate Tulum’s due date and then to monitor the development of her fetus.

At birth, an anteater pup is born with its full coat of hair—just a smaller version of the adults. To see the pup, guests visiting Brookfield Zoo should look on Tulum’s back. For several months, she will be hitching a ride. In the wild, the similar coloring between a pup and its mom offers a great camouflage from predators. At about four months of age, the young anteater will walk besides her mother but may occasionally climb onto her back. When Tulum sleeps, she covers the pup with her large tail.

The breeding between Tulum and Lupito was based on a recommendation from the AZA’s Species Survival Program (SSP) for this species. The Giant Anteater SSP manages the breeding of the species in order to maintain a healthy and self-sustaining breeding population that is both genetically diverse and demographically stable. Currently, there are just over 100 giant anteaters in 55 North American zoos, including Brookfield Zoo, which first cared for anteaters in 1958. The species is also housed in institutions in Europe, Asia, and South America, the latter of which is where a reintroduction program for the species is taking place in the province of Corrientes in Argentina. Conservation actions are important for the survival of this species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the giant anteater as vulnerable in its native habitat of Honduras, Brazil, and northern Argentina. The species’ population is declining because of habitat loss from urban development and farmland, hunting for meat and leather, wildfires, and road kills. Researchers estimate only about 5,000 giant anteaters remain in the wild.

Giant anteaters are the largest of four anteater species. They weigh between 40 and 100 pounds and are between five and seven feet from nose to the tip of their tail. They are dark gray with black-and-white shoulder stripes. Their defining features are their long, narrow head; 2-foot-long tongue, which produces a sticky saliva when they eat thousands of ants and termites a day; and a long, bushy tail. They do not have teeth, and their second and third digits on the front feet each have a sharp, powerful long claw.