When asked about his fascination with the animal by [Dick] Cavett, the artist describes anteaters as “angelic.” A master of PR, Dalí knew well by this stage in his career the marketability of his eccentricities but even so, his longstanding affinity to anteaters does seem earnest, and certainly well-documented.
Photo: Salvador Dalí walking a giant anteater in Paris, 1969.
Very interesting! Meeting and aardvark or anteater is a current top priority on my non-owl list of animals I must encounter. I've seen them at zoos, but we have always been on opposite sides of the display, which I'd like to remedy at some point.
I couldn't find anything saying that anteater was his actual pet. The baby one he took on Dick Cavett was a loaner from the Bronx Zoo, and from all I could find, the one from the Paris photo was also most likely borrowed from a zoo. (Ahhh, the things one could do with animals before we collectively decided they may have conciousnesses of their own...)
It sees he did actually have a "pet" ocelot, given to him by a Columbian head of state. It's name was Babou, and is apparently the inspiration for Cheryl's ocelot Babou in the cartoon series Archer.
The Dick Cavett interview is a real trip. The poor baby anteater gets tossed on the floor, a table, and finally launched on the guest actress by Dali and even she scolds him saying he scared the poor thing.