The giant anteater has a two-foot-long tongue and a big appetite for ants and termites, which helps balance their ecosystems. However, habitat loss is among the reasons these elusive animals are threatened. With your help, we’re teaming up with an organization committed to learning more about the species to save it.

Wild Animal Conservation Institute, or Icas, does conservation work in four Brazilian biomes, including the Pantanal – the world’s largest tropical wetland – and the Cerrado savanna. As part of this work, they care for and re-release giant anteaters. The organization is also trying to better understand their reproductive process, which requires equipment and training.

We’re teaming up with Greater Good Charities to help provide ultrasound equipment and veterinarian training for Icas’ ongoing seven-year study of giant anteaters in the Cerrado. This will provide a non-invasive way to study reproductive organs, estrous cycles, pregnancies, and sexual maturity. The goal is to add on to what little is currently known about their reproduction, which will help inform management strategies in captivity and the wild.

Icas says, “Giant anteaters are a charismatic, iconic species from the Neotropics. However, very little is known about them. Our results indicate that males are not dispersing. This is very important to understand population dynamics of the species, which is key to their conservation.

"Using the ultrasound, we will be able to estimate if males are adults or juveniles... One of the individuals we will be studying is the only albino anteater monitored in the world… The portable ultrasound will help us to better understand this unique individual.”

The conservation of giant anteaters is important, as they face threats including habitat loss, road collisions, hunting, and low reproductive rates. They’ve already been extirpated from certain areas of their historic range throughout Central and South America.

If you’d like to help support research into giant anteaters, click below!