Morfologia dos ossos do membro torácico do tamanduá-bandeira

• Autor(a) principal: Lima, Imara Guimarães
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Biihrer, Daniel Arrais, Guimarães, Gregório Corrêa, Moreira, Karen Caetany, Rosa, Matheus Camargos de Britto, Oliveira, Fabrício Singaretti de, Guimarães, Camila Souza de Oliveira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFLA
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufla.br/jspui/handle/1/13020
• topic: Tamanduá-bandeira - Acidentes ósseos; Tamanduá-bandeira - Anatomia; Tamanduá-bandeira - Membro torácico; Giant anteater - Bone accidents; Giant anteater - Anatomy; Giant anteater - Thoracic member

The giant anteater has a grayish-brown pelage with white and black tones, its skull is elongated, cylindrical, and there are no teeth. Its tail is long, with thick and long bristles, resembling a flag. This is an endangered species, due to the constant degradation of its habitat, in addition to deaths caused by fires and roadkills. Thus, this paper aimed to describe the morphology of the thoracic limb bones in Myrmecophaga tridactyla, focusing on its main bone accidents. We used two specimens of giant anteater collected on highways in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, after death due to being run over. The scapula, humerus, radius, ulna, and the hand bones showed particular characteristics adapted to the species’ lifestyle and habits. In general, the scapula resembles that in human beings and the humerus is similar to that in armadillo, the radius and ulna exhibit articular surfaces which enable a wide range of rotational movements in the forearm, the carpal bones are also similar in number and shape to those in human beings, and the fingers are well developed in the giant anteater, having long, strong and sharp claws, especially in the third finger. Thus, the anatomical description of the thoracic limb bones in the giant anteater showed to be important, providing a deeper understanding both of the functional aspects of the thoracic limb and the comparative anatomy of wild animals.