Northern tamanduas subsist almost entirely on diets of ants and termites, although they have also been observed to eat small quantities of fruit. They prefer relatively large insects, over in length, including "Camponotus", "Azteca", "Crematogaster", and "Nasutitermes", among others. They may eat up to 9,000 insects per day, from 50 to 80 different nests, which they locate by scent and then dig into with their powerful claws. They extract the ants with their long, narrow, sticky tongues, but seem to do little permanent damage to the nests, perhaps because they do not spend long at each one before being driven away by the insects' natural defences.