What is the biggest/heaviest animal that feeds on insects (e.i. eats mainly insects)?
Answer Dear Tuija Thank you for your question. I also wish to thank the authors of the books and websites I used. There are two potential candidates for this. The first is the giant anteater. Mark Carwardine’s ‘Natural History Animal Records’ says that the anteater has a 1-1.2 m body and 70-90 cm tail and weighs 20-60 kg. http://www.iwokrama.org/forest/animals/giantanteater.htm gives similar figures of length, but weights of 18-39 kg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark says the aardvark has a 1-1.3 m body and can reach 2.2 m including the tail, which can be up to 70 cm. It can weigh 40 and 65 kg. This would probably make the aardvark slightly larger, although it has a more varied diet, including some vegetation.
