Fun fact about anteaters: they have tongues that cab be up two feet long! Check out the video I took at the Houston Zoo below. Right now I have seven tabs open about giant anteaters and let me say, if you ever need an adorable video to watch, look up giant anteater taking a shower.

Video of Anteater at Houston Zoo

Hi I’m Gigi and I’m one of the SEED interns from Rice. We started this internship on Wednesday and are currently 2 days into our ENGI 120 Bootcamp. During Bootcamp we are doing a mini project using the engineering design process. The project is creating enrichment for the anteaters at the Houston Zoo. We went to the Zoo yesterday to interview the zookeepers (the client) about the project so we could create the design criteria for the project.

Right now we are in the brainstorming process, having worked on research all yesterday afternoon and this morning (see “having seven tabs open” above). Giant anteaters are really interesting creatures: they have some of the lowest body temperatures in the mammal kingdom due to them subsisting on only ants and termites. But interestingly enough, termites have the highest protein to mass ratio, roughly double either beef or chicken. In the wild anteaters typically eat up to 30,000 ants a day.

To mimic this, the zookeepers feed the anteaters several times a day. Unfortunately, due to the massive size of the giant anteaters and their strong claws the zookeepers can’t go into the exhibit with the animals in there. To get something they would have to pull the animals off the exhibit which takes time and doesn’t allow the patrons to see the animals. Instead the zookeepers throw the food over the fence in brown paper bags several times a day. While effective in feeding them, the bags are easily torn apart by the anteaters and don’t hold their attention for long.

I’ll write later updating about how the brainstorming went. Cheers!