How I met a giant anteater
Sep 21, 2019
This summer I stayed with my family in Brabant, the Netherlands, and one day we decided to visit Zooparc Overloon, a small zoo where I had never been before. I know that some of these smaller zoo's have rather special animal species that are less familiar in the bigger Dutch zoo's. I was delighted to see that they had a giant anteater and even better, the female had just given birth to a healthy baby that was now ready to show to the public.
Mother and child were still kept indoors, but through a large window I was able to see them quite clearly. I wondered if problems with my eyesight was the reason why I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then I realized that the furry animal walking through the cage was not just having a bad hairday, it was actually two of them, The mother was carrying the baby on her back like a huge fur coat. As giant anteaters are very weird shaped animals, it was quite a challenge to distinguishe the mother from the child. Just take a look at the photo below nd you will see what I mean.
,I don't think I have ever stayed this long with a specific animal in a zoo in my life, as with these anteaters. I was so intrigued by them. Why was she carrying her child this way? Why did the nails on her claws grow in such a weird shape and what would it be like to have such a narrow shaped head. The animal almost seemed as if from another planet, as every part of the animal was like I had never seen before in my life. After visiting the zoo I decided two things: I wanted to know more about this animal, and I wanted to paint this mother and child.
By searching the internet I found that it's normal for mothers to carry their child on their back for one year! The claws look strange because they protect their long nails and actually walk on their fists. So just imagining yourself, walking on your two fists all year with a one year old child on your back...
Giant anteaters don't have teeth, but instead have an enormous 60 cm tongue. Their eyes and ears a small, and if you would imagine them without the long face you would probably understand that they are related to the sloth. Both with the same talent: they make you smile by the way they look. Just to illustrate this: I found this lovely video on youtube from San Diego Zoo:
Painting the giant anteater in watercolor was one of the most difficult projects for me for several reasons. First I had to understand which part belonged to the mother, and which part to the child. Where did one animal begin and where did the other stop? Especially the dark stripe starting at their necks gives them this remarkable camouflage that could puzzle you. From a distance it almost looks like a tail and you keep wondering: which part is the tail and which part is the head? If painting one giant anteater wasn't bad enough, painting two on top of eachother turned out to be a real challenge.
Furthermore their fur consists of grey brown shades with some hairs longer than others: short 'punky' hairs on their spine and very long hairs on their tail, some parts dark and some light.
Last but not least, was to give this bowl of grey brown hair two unique characters, one being a cute lazy kid sitting on his mother's back, the other a mother with alot of stamina. The result is shown below, I hope you like it.
