The ‘Earth Pig’: Aardvark

First, Aardvark apparently comes from the Afrikaans word ‘erdvark’. This means ‘earth pig’, which I think is a cool nickname.

How to explain an aardvark? Well, it’s a burrowing mammal from Africa that is mostly active at night. It is an insectivore and it finds its food using its long snout to sniff them out. They are listed as ‘least concern’ and can be found in the southern 2/3’s of the African continent. So, what are some fun facts?

Aardvarks are afrotheres, which is a group of mammals with living members that either live in Africa or have African origins. Other members are elephants, golden moles, tenrecs, manatees, and more.
They are also considered a living fossil due to their genetic makeup staying relatively unchanged for 50 million years.
Their tongues can be up to 12 inches long and are used to get into termite and ant nests.
Aardvarks avoid rocky terrain because they need to make burrows for home, child-rearing, and protection.
They eat about 50,000 insects a night.
They swallow their food whole and grind them up in a muscular area of its stomach, which is similar to a gizzard.
Aardvarks rarely drink water, but get it through the food they eat.
A female aardvark is pregnant for 7 months and can only give birth to one pup at a time.
Babies are weaned at 3 months, leave home at 6 months, and can start breeding at 2 years.
Aardvarks have four toes on their front feet and five toes on their back feet.
While people imagine them to be small, they are actually around 7 feet long and can weigh from 130-185 pounds.
Their burrows tend to be 30-40 feet long.
Abandoned aardvark burrows are used by other animals such as snakes, owls, warthogs, and wild dogs.
Aardvarks have poor eyesight, but they have most olfactory turbinal bones of any mammal and a highly development olfactory lobe.

That covers a lot, so let’s get to the pictures and videos.

About Charles Yallowitz

Charles E. Yallowitz was born, raised, and educated in New York. Then he spent a few years in Florida, realized his fear of alligators, and moved back to the Empire State. When he isn't working hard on his epic fantasy stories, Charles can be found cooking or going on whatever adventure his son has planned for the day. 'Legends of Windemere' is his first series, but it certainly won't be his last.

View all posts by Charles Yallowitz →