Emily: We removed his fur, his skin, his clothing a few days ago, and uh, now we've come back for his insides. So we'll be taking out most of his major organs and Anna's gonna pickle them. Giant anteater organs are a hot commodity.

Anna: We don't have lots of them.

E: We're gonna start by taking his tongue out and it's really crazy 'cause I've been pulling on it and it attaches down here.

A: I'm just following it and it's fairly easy to follow.

E: The tongue? 'Cause it's this giant worm that comes out.

A: Yeah it's just real big.

E: He's been sitting out for a while. It was a big task to try and undertake in one day, so we had to do it over a couple days.

A: There's a lot of freezing and thawing.

E: Yeah...and it's, yeah, like your lunch meat going bad, except a little bloodier. And there's this stuff coming off of the tongue that smells really bad. We think when it's alive that that's the substance that's the sticky bit that goes into the termite mounds and helps to (slurps) slurp up the, uh, termites and ants. So which organs of his are we saving?

A: Heart, the liver, muscle, and spleen.

E: What's so crazy about his spleen?

A: You know, Bill Stanley had asked for it.

E: Okay.

A: It's an unusual request. Yeah, so you can see how smooth his throat is.

E: Oh my god, yeah. Ew, that's kinda gross. What is that? Oh, what is that?

A: This is the tongue. So it starts in two muscles, joins into one.

E: Really? How far down does it go? Just gonna reach on in there.

A: I can't get that far. Feel that?

E: Yeah.

A: The whole thing. It's huge.

E: Oh, wow! You can feel the entire hyoid down here. They can be pretty small in other mammals, but this one has a massive structure.

A: I ain't never seen anything like this before.

E: What?

A: I don't know. Look, so like I cut in-

E: Oh.

A: So mostly, when you cut into the abdominal wall you get the guts. It's like a little- just like a little case that goes 'bloop,'

E: Yeah.

A: And you have guts and everything, just open, free-flowing. And so this is like, uh, like an abdominal wall of, like, fat. Like, this is super fatty and then, like, the guts, I'm still not in the guts yet.

E: That's a lot of blood though.

A: Here, you wanna see? Look, guys.

E: You see the bubbles in the...

A: Yeah.

E: It's really thin. I'm a little- I'm a little nervous about that. Guts are the one thing I'm unsure of.

A: Well you know, it's...

E: Blood and muscle's fine, but then you get into the guts and you get this poop action coming out.

A: So we're just gonna cautiously go on either side. I'm not gonna go directly in there, 'cause I wanna make sure that that's not like a super big bladder or something.

E: He's gonna pee all over the table.

A: Out of excitement.

E: Yeah, he so thrilled.

A: Or...or for some people, nervousness. Ohp, here we go.

E: Oh yeah!

A: Goodness gracious!!

E: Woah!! Auuugh! I'm bad at words. I'm just like, "auuugh!"

A: You didn't do well in your words class at school?

E: No... Look at all those... guts.

A: Look at how thick this is, this is crazy, layers and stuff.

E: It is! And it's squishy and it's- oh, man! It's got a great texture. Yeah, there's all that- that blood.

A: It feels good, it's really gooey in there. Ohp. That's what these are for.

E: Oh, it is. He's bleeding. We got a bleeder.

A: Ohp, oh, just- just-

E: It's all over the place.

A: Yeah, just slosh it everywhere.

E: Should I just let it gush out? Is this... his small intestine?

A: Well, you're reaching- I don't-

E: His large intestine?

A: You put things out of context and I have no idea where-

E: This is- oh, it was right here. This is his large intestine; I feel his poop.

A: Tuck it here. Oh, look.

E: It's squishing out.

A: Yeah.

E: This is kind of where you get the odors. I'm getting the smells.

A: They are over in your general direction, 

E: They are.

A: I'm kinda like on the other side.

E: I don't do well with the smells.

A: Well if you puke, you just puke right in there.

E: Puke into the guts?

A: I am like a kid in a candy shop right now.

E: Yeah?

A: This is like Willy Wonka's factory, and I'm like, "What's this!? Oh my god! I don't know!"

E: Yeah!... Guts! What is this right here? Is this just more intestine that's connected?

A: That's intestine. Yeah.

E: With this weird... tissue bits?

A: Look! Liver. Woooh.

E: Pretty sure this is the large intestine

A: Woah, it's all...

E: It's full of gas.

A: This is all very gaseous.

E: Yeah. I don't-

A: This is...

E: Do you ever let the gasses out, or do you just toss 'em in full?

A: Noooo, I just-

E: I ca- it's- 

A: I don't...

E: This is really strange 'cause you can feel, like, you can feel hard bits, like I can- I can feel matter in here that hasn't been, yeah,

A: Poop! 

E: hasn't been properly or fully digested. Like I'm squeezing a turd down there.

A: If he only had a little bit more time...

E: Here's the uh, that intestine. Oh, something deflated.

A: Oh, look at you, d- aw, it's cur- aw,

E: I didn't...it's gonna...

A: aw, ch- aww...

E: It's gonna- it's gonna, shhhh, It's gonna stink. 

A: Awwh.

E: I just touched it!

A: You know, don't- y- owh..

E: I think the poop smell's manageable.

A: Really?

E: Yeah.

A: See that's what gets me, is the poop. It's like, awh, poop, bl- blaugh.

E: The poop is like, earthy though. This smells noxious.

A: That's. Not. Earth.

E: I was feeling a little more nauseous about this before we started but now that I have all the guts in front of me, I feel better. Like, my headache went away.

A: Your headache's probably like, "I don't wanna deal with this sh-"

E: "I don't have time for this."

A: I'm going to grab some liver, which is right here, and that's the gall bladder, so we don't want that. Just gonna...

E: Nope. Nobody even needs a gall bladder.

A: Don't say that to the gall bladder! I am putting a liver tissue sample into what's called a "Nunc tube." Now this Nunc tube is specifically designed so that it can be dropped in liquid nitrogen and not break or crack.

E: To preserve the tissue sample.

A: Yeah.

E: Because if you put it in a tube with the intent to preserve the DNA, but you let the tissue inside rot, then it's not really doing a whole lot of good, is it?

A: Rotten tissue does not preserve DNA. So let's go- here, okay, so this is the liver.

E: Okay.

A: That means that this must be the stomach.

E: Yeah.

A: Okay, and now down from the stomach, this is the pancreas? Right?

E: Sure.

A: So the spleen...

E: Is that the spleen?

A: That's the pancreas, this must be the spleen, the smaller- 'Cause I think the pancreas is bigger than the spleen.

E: It looks like a tongue.

A: Yeah.

E: This is like the greatest 'I Spy' ever. Everything's all one homogeneous color and you're still just digging around all these funny textures, finding all...

A: Yeah, I'm not used to them being this loose. So we're just gonna go for the kidney.

E: Okay.

A: 'Cause it's just easy right there. So we're taking a lot of tissue samples because these guys are so rare. So we want to make sure that like, we've got everything that a given researcher would possibly want.

E: This doesn't look like a very large sample,

A: Right.

E: but you can get how many extractions of DNA off this?

A: Yeah, so an extraction of DNA for synthesis is actually just the size of a grain of rice.

E: Really?

A: So, we can get many.

E: Oh, look at this. There's a bubble on the outside of the stomach. And we have blood going down the drain.

A: We'll have to deal with that later.

E: What's next?

A: We'll do muscle.

E: Where do you typically get the muscle from?

A: Um, I'm gonna do the leg-

E: Okay.

A: so if you don't mind opening those up- 'cause we got a lot of really nice exposed muscle right here. We may get a whole different set of smells.

E: Going into the diaphragm?

A: Yeah.

E: Why is that? Just because they're in different chambers of the body?

A: Yeah. Oh, look. We've got this like, this completely different texture of blood as well.

E: Yeah. Oh, it's all congealed. 

A: Yeah. Okay, let's...

E: You can hear it flopping. Like, you can hear the insides, the contents of the stomach making these gas noises.

A: Yeah. Oh! Oh. I don't know what that is. I do- I can like, get my hand in there.

E: It's like pudding. You just-

A: It is.

E: It's just falling apart.

A: Such goodness to be had! I wish I had one of those like, dentist suckers. This is the colon.

E: Yeah.

A: And the bladder, there's no...

E: There's no way. Unless he peed already, but I missed that.

A: Yeah, 'cause I think those are the testicles, and this is the bladder.

E: It's so tiny!

A: So I'm grabbing the kidney, to make sure that it comes with the guts. We're gonna leave the balls 'cause we're gonna do that separately.

E: Is 'balls' the technical term?

A: Ohp. Ohp. Uhp.

E: Is it poop? Oh, you got the poop. I think the poop is fine. I almost said that I liked the poop, 'cause it's not true. I don't like poop. But I would take the poop over the uh, distended stomach any day.

A: Will you grab the bucket?

E: Yeah. How do you wanna do this? You just- you wanna schloop 'em in there? Woaah. Alright.

A: Don't forget... the kidney. So now,

E: The kidney. Kay, kidney.

A: we're gonna cut into the diaphragm. This is the diaphragm.

E: Hm, okay.

A: When you guys get the hiccups, this is what's spasming right here. All this stuff.

E: Does your- When your diaphragm gets out of sync, it punches your lungs. Are those the lungs?

A: Yeah. Hold on.

E: What?

A: There's like this cavity that I keep getting...

E: lost in?

A: Mostly, you can just reach up and find the esophagus and pull down, and I'm, like, digging through weird... tissue to try and get to it.

E: Ooh. Anna Goldman, elbow deep inside of an anteater right now.

A: I got-

E: You got it?

A: W- it's not- Nope. Almost. We're almost through.

E: Oh, wow.

A: Okay. There's so much fascia in here.

E: That's such a weird noise.

A: I'm so glad there's a shower here. Okay, so. The heart is right here. These are the lungs. Oooh, they're all textured funny!

E: Oh, it's like a cat's tongue!

A: So we've gotta take a heart sample. Will you grab those two tubes right there? So I've gotta bust open the heart sac.

E: I wanna see it's heart. I wanna see that- Oh my gosh!

A: There it is.

E: It's beautiful!

A: It's gorgeous. Okay, so we'll just take it from... It's not a real dissection unless you stick your fingers in it, okay?

E: Yeah. Push out all that- Look at how dark that blood is. It's black. See it coming out of the heart?

A: So these are the lungs, and you see how pink they are?

E: Yeah.

A: He was not a smoker. Put your finger in there.

E: Eeeooooh!

A: Wanna marry me?

E: Yeaaaah it's like one of those Chinese finger traps.

A: That's how I trick you! Can you- Ca- Can you see in there?

E: Ooh. It echoes! Hosenose, hosenose, hosenose... Anna, how'd you get to be so cool?

A: You know, it's just one anteater at a time. Yeah, I'd like to get the tongue out so we can get a better view, but this is all very crazy in here.

E: Is it attached to the manubrium?

A: I-It's- yeah, it's attached right here.

E: Yeah. To the inside of the sternum.

A: Yeah.

E: Our tongues are not attached to the inside of our sternums.

A: Speak for yourself, man!

E: Oh my gosh.

A: Do it.

E: That's- that's the entire tongue. This is the part that's attached on the inside of the chest, and the hyoid goes between here, so it can articulate, and move it, control, and have more power on this tongue. And then it goes into the sheath, And then- But it- You can see where it remains two separate highways, and kind of converges down here. I'm 5'9." I would say this thing is probably a meter long.

A: Stick your finger in the trachea and in the esophagus. Now try and get into the- show me your finger. Get, get over here.

E: Right here.

A: There ya go! So that's your windpipe versus your swallowing tube.

E: Yeah! Yeah.

A: So...

E: There are two- two channels here.

A: Your swallowing tube is really soft,

E: Mhmm.

A: and flabby, but your trachea? Super important. If your esophagus collapses, that's one thing. But you wanna always be able to breathe.

E: You just gave that guy a tracheotomy. 

A: Yeah. Watch, he starts breathing again with the lungs that are in the bucket.

E: That'd be hilarious. So um, Anna's going to finish taking all of his muscles off, and unfortunately that's- that is what we will see of the process. Ready? (High five) Yeah! Oh gross.

A: Yeah, I got that sprayback.

(Credits)

E: It still has brains on it