Episode 229 - Myrmecophagy (Ant-Eating)

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2025

⏱️ 141 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to mess with ants. But several lineages of animals have evolved to be ant-eating specialists. This episode, we discuss anteaters, the suite of adaptations that allow them to focus on ant-eating, and the variety of other species that have evolved similar adaptations for the same purpose. We explore the evolutionary history of ant-eating mammals and even dinosaurs through the fossil record and genetic evidence. In the news: butt-drags, ancient leeches, Neanderthal tracks, and spider genomes. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:06:00Main discussion, Part 1: 00:40:10Main discussion, Part 2: 01:40:15Patron question: 02:08:30 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, David. Hello, Will. And hello, listeners. Welcome to episode 229 of the Common
0:27.6	Ascent podcast, where we discuss fossil, evolutionary, and earth science topics. Today, we're
0:34.6	talking about mermechophagy, or in simpler terms, ant eating.
0:39.6	Eating of ants.
0:41.1	This is another diet episode where we will be looking at the behavior of ant eating,
0:48.1	eating ants as often for many organisms, a main source of their diet.
0:53.9	Right.
0:54.1	Not just eating a few ants, but mostly eating ants.
0:57.9	We'll go through some of the major groups that do this.
1:01.1	The adaptations they share to be efficient ant eaters,
1:06.6	as well as what evidence there is in the fossil record of the evolution of some of these groups and other ant-eating members,
1:15.7	and just take a look at how extremely common it is for animals to decide,
1:22.3	well, I think I'll just eat ants.
1:25.6	Also, we'll spend some extra time on ant eaters, the animals that are called ant eaters.
1:33.3	Exactly.
1:34.4	Because we kind of can't skip over them to any degree in this episode.
1:40.6	That is their namesake.
1:42.9	Xenarthrin fans rejoice.
1:46.2	We are discussing this,
1:48.3	partially because I was inspired by that news
1:50.3	we did a few episodes ago,
	...

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