For 's new challenge It's due for the 15th of April so still time if anyone wants to join!After the Anthropocene mass extinction caused by Homo sapiens' effect on Earth's ecosystems and climate, many (mostly large) species vanished. This left many niches vacant which caused many survivors to evolve. One of these species were the descendants of the Northern tamandua ().With Earth's rapid increasing sea levels caused by the melting of basically all ice caps, some populations of these small arboreal anteaters happened to get caught on the islands of forests in Central America. With all this water around it didn't take long before some populations tended to search for invertebrates around and in the water. Their strong arms and tail were usefull to swim and hold onto underwater debris.In about 10 million years after the mass extinction and disappearance ofthese watergoing anteaters evolved into a completely new animal that didn't need to come on land anymore. Reef chamarelas are the only example in mammalian evolution where a pelagic family used its front limbs only as a way of locomotion underwater instead of their tail. The hindlimbs are severely reduced and apart from some internal bone structures nothing is left of them.The body is still covered in furr and below that a layer of fat for extra warmth. Because they can't survive outside of tropical waters they are only found on the Eastern side of Central and the north of South America. The Carribean and the Interior Amazon Sea house a particular large population.Reef chamarelas are rather small animals so keeping warm in the water is harder for them than the now mostly extinct cetaceans. They solve this by moving slowly most of the time. This is also how they get their food: hanging around on reefs or plains of seagrass makes them hard to spot because of the algae growing in their fur, a feature three-toed sloths had too. Small fish and crustaceans are unaware of the presence of the predator who can stay hidden underwater for up to half an hour. The long snout tamanduas already had lost its long tong, kept most of its shape and evolved into the tool of a suction feeder that manages to suck up prey incredibly fast, similar to the members of, certain turtles and now extinct beaked whales.With their tails they stay in place while the little claw on their flippers is also still able to hook behind rocky surfaces.One pup is born in undeep water and stays close to its mother. It's fed fat milk that enables it to grow fast. Two months later it's already half as large as an adult and able to survive on its own.The name "chamarela" comes from the Portugese language and can be translated as "straw" because of the animal's suction feeding, but can also be translated as "pipe" because when an animal points its nose above the surface to breath, a little cute whistle can apparently be heard.