song for an unusual creature

My friend Michael Hearst has been writing about unusual creatures for quite some time now, and I've delighted in his inclusion of giant anteaters among his literary and musical creations. Last year he published an Unusual Creatures book with entries on critters from the blobfish to the elephant shrew to everyone's favorite fuzzy long-nosed mammal. Michael is also an accomplished musician who has interpreted the musical essence of some of these animals by writing about them in song!

As you might imagine, when I first learned Michael was thinking up ideas for his unusual creatures songs I chatted with him about giant anteaters and even tried to help him obtain some anteater sound recordings. More recently, Michael paid a visit to Anteater Central—a.k.a. the Nashville Zoo—to meet a couple of giant anteaters in person and listen to what they sound like for himself! He was inspired to write a new anteater tune, which you can download for free from the Unusual Creatures website. Here's a great little clip from PBS Digital on how it all went down! •>~