Search For The Myrmecophaga Tridactyla

In the days before the bombs,
the Banbury Boy and the Tiffins Girl found themselves
venturing into one of the city's much-loved Royal Parks.
Looking back now, it seems like such a long time ago.
They had originally intended to
see a film, but that hadn't quite worked out.
The Banbury Boy had blamed the listed details on the website.
At the time, they hadn't known each other for very long.
He was looking to impress.
It was early-summer. A Sunday afternoon.
One of the endearing oddities of the English language
(and there are certainly several) is the sheer abundance
of collective nouns in everyday common usage.
All of them meaning "group", but each one
glaringly specific to whatever particular thing
there happens to be a group of at the time.
A "herd" of elephants for example.
Or a "parcel" of penguins.
A "charm" of goldfinches is another,
And then, of course, there's a "sleuth" of bears,
a "shrewdness" of apes,
a "murder" of crows,
and (my personal favourite) a "smack" of jellyfish.
Covered with stiff, straw-like hair,
the giant ant-eater of South America is
roughly about the size of a German shepherd dog.
As the name suggests, they exist
on a diet of ants and termites -
sometimes up to 30,000 insects in a single day.
Granted, it's not the kind of creature you might expect
to see in a much-loved Royal Park
on a Sunday afternoon
in early-summer,
but that's why he'd brought her here.
That's what he'd promised her a look at.
Much to the Banbury Boy's disappointment,
there is an "absence" of giant ant-eaters to be seen.