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Aardvarks- Very Common
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The Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) (afer: from Africa) is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa.[2] It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata,[3] although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known.
It is sometimes called "antbear", "anteater", or the "Cape anteater" after the Cape of Good Hope. The name comes from the Afrikaans/Dutch[4] for "earth pig" or "ground pig" (aarde earth/ground, varken pig), because of its burrowing habits (similar origin to the name groundhog). The aardvark is not related to the pig; rather, it is the sole recent representative of the obscure mammalian order Tubulidentata, in which it is usually considered to form one variable species of the genus Orycteropus, the sole surviving genus in the family Orycteropodidae. The aardvark is not closely related to the South American anteater, despite sharing some characteristics and a superficial resemblance.[5] The closest living relatives of the aardvark are the elephant shrews, along with the sirenians, hyraxes, tenrecs, and elephants. Together with their extinct relatives, these animals form the superorder Afrotheria.
Contents
1 Description
2 Behavior
3 Habitat
4 Mythology and popular culture
5 Notes and references
6 External links
Description
A sketch from The New Student's Reference WorkOne of the most distinctive characteristics of the Tubulidentata is their teeth. Instead of having a pulp cavity, each tooth has a cluster of thin, upright, parallel tubes of vasodentin (a modified form of dentine), with individual pulp canals, held together by cementum. The teeth have no enamel coating and are worn away and regrow continuously. The aardvark is born with conventional incisors and canines at the front of the jaw, which fall out and are not replaced. Adult aardvarks only have cheek teeth at the back of the jaw, and have a dental formula of:
An Aardvark Skull From the Collections of Skulls Unlimited International.Genetically speaking, the aardvark is a living fossil, as its chromosomes are highly conserved, reflecting much of the early eutherian arrangement before the divergence of the major modern taxa.[6]
The aardvark is vaguely pig-like in appearance. Its body is stout with an arched back and is sparsely covered with coarse hairs. The limbs are of moderate length. The front feet have lost the pollex (or 'thumb') — resulting in four toes — but the rear feet have all five toes. Each toe bears a large, robust nail which is somewhat flattened and shovel-like, and appears to be intermediate between a claw and a hoof. The ears are disproportionately long, and the tail is very thick at the base and gradually tapers. The greatly elongated head is set on a short, thick neck, and the end of the snout bears a disc, which houses the nostrils. The mouth is small and tubular, typical of species that feed on termites. The aardvark has a long, thin, snakelike, protruding tongue and elaborate structures supporting a keen sense of smell.
An aardvark's weight is typically between 40 and 65 kg. An aardvark's length is usually between 1 and 1.3 metres, and can reach lengths of 2.2 metres[2] when its tail (which can be up to 70 centimetres)[2] is taken into account. The aardvark is pale yellowish gray in color and often stained reddish-brown by soil. The aardvark's coat is thin and the animal's primary protection is its tough skin. The aardvark has been known to sleep in a recently excavated ant nest, which also serves as protection from its predators.
Behavior
Resting aardvark in Himeji City ZooThe aardvark is nocturnal and is a solitary creature that feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites (formicivore);[7] the only fruit eaten by aardvarks is the aardvark cucumber. An aardvark emerges from its burrow in the late afternoon or shortly after sunset, and forages over a considerable home range encompassing 10 to 30 km,[2] swinging its long nose from side to side to pick up the scent of food. When a concentration of ants or termites is detected, the aardvark digs into it with its powerful front legs, keeping its long ears upright to listen for predators, and takes up an astonishing number of insects with its long, sticky tongue—as many as 50,000 in one night have been recorded. It can dig 2 feet in 15 seconds [8], but otherwise moves fairly slowly. Its claws enable it to dig through the extremely hard crust of a termite or ant mound quickly, avoiding the dust by sealing the nostrils. When successful, the aardvark's long (up to 30 cm)[2] tongue licks up the insects; the termites' biting, or the ants' stinging attacks are rendered futile by the tough skin. Its keen hearing warns it of predators: lions, leopards, hyenas, and pythons.
Aside from digging out ants and termites, the aardvark also excavates burrows in which to live: temporary sites are scattered around the home range as refuges, and a main burrow is used for breeding. Main burrows can be deep and extensive, have several entrances and can be as long as 13 meters.[7] The aardvark changes the layout of its home burrow regularly, and from time to time moves on and makes a new one; the old burrows are then inhabited by smaller animals like the African Wild Dog.[2] Only mothers and young share burrows. If attacked in the tunnel, it will seal the tunnel off behind itself or turn around and attack with its claws.
Aardvark mother and youngAardvarks only pair during the breeding season; after a gestation period of 7 months, one cub weighing around 2 kg is born, and is able to leave the burrow to accompany its mother after only two weeks, and is eating termites at 14 weeks and is weaned by 16 weeks.[2][7] At six months of age it is able to dig its own burrows, but it will often remain with the mother until the next mating season, and is sexually capable by the season after that.
Aardvarks live for up to 24 years in captivity.[2]
The aardvark's main predators are lions, leopards, hunting dogs and pythons. Some African tribes also hunt aardvarks for its flesh. Aardvarks can dig fast or run in zigzag fashion to elude enemies, but if all else fails, they will strike with their claws, tail and shoulders, sometimes flipping onto their backs to lash with all fours. Their thick skin also protects them to some extent.
HabitatAardvarks live in subsaharan Africa, where there is suitable habitat for them to live, such as savannas, grasslands, woodlands and bushland, and available food (i.e., ants and termites).[5]
Mythology and popular cultureIn African folklore the aardvark is much admired because of its diligent quest for food and its fearless response to soldier ants. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree. Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission.[9]
The Egyptian god Set (mythology) is said, by some, to have the head of an Aardvark,[10] or part Aardvark.[11]
The main character of Arthur, a popular animated television series for children produced by WGBH-TV and shown in more than 100 countries, is an aardvark.[12]
One of the main characters of the 1969-1971 animated cartoon The Ant and the Aardvark is a blue aardvark voiced by John Byner, doing an impersonation of Jackie Mason. It depicts the Aardvark attempting, and failing, to catch and eat his antagonist, the Ant, also voiced by Byner impersonating Dean Martin.
The Canadian cartoon series The Raccoons featured an antagonist named Cyril Sneer; he and his son Cedric were both portrayed as being aardvarks.
Cerebus the Aardvark was the title character of a comic-book series by Dave Sim and Gerhard that ran from 1977 to 2004, and is still sold in collected volumes of reprints.
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Anteaters- UnCommon
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Anteaters are the four mammal species of the suborder Vermilingua[1] commonly known for eating ants and termites.[2] Together with the sloths, they compose the order Pilosa. The name "anteater" is also colloquially applied to the unrelated aardvark, numbat, echidna, and pangolin.
Extant species comprise the Giant Anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla, about 1.8 m (6 ft) long including the tail; the Silky Anteater Cyclopes didactylus, about 35 cm (14 in.) long; the Southern Tamandua or Collared Anteater Tamandua tetradactyla, about 1.2 m (4 ft) long; and the Northern Tamandua Tamandua mexicana of similar dimensions.
Contents
1 Physiology
2 Habitat
3 Evolution
4 Classification
5 Gallery
6 References
7 Further reading
Physiology
The largest extant representative of the group is the Giant Anteater, or ant-bear (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), an animal measuring up to 2.4 meter (8 feet) in length, excluding the tail, and up to 1.2 meter (4 foot) in height at the shoulder. It has a long, thin head and a large, bushy tail. Its prevailing color is gray, with a broad black band, bordered with white, starting on the chest, and passing obliquely over the shoulder, diminishing gradually in breadth as it approaches the loins, where it ends in a point. Giant Anteaters are sometimes mistaken for bears because of their claws and bushy fur. The Giant Anteater is a very solitary animal. In Spanish, an anteater is referred to as an oso hormiguero, literally, "anteating bear."
Anteaters eat ants, termites and soft-bodied grubs. Using the long, sharp claws on their forelimbs, they open insect colonies and tree trunks. They then use the tongue to collect the eggs, larvae, and adult insects. The salivary glands secrete sticky saliva during feeding that coats the tongue. They only stay at one ant colony for a short period of time to avoid soldier ants, but giant anteaters can consume a few thousand insects in minutes. The tongue is attached to the sternum and moves very quickly, flicking 150 times per minute. They will eat fruit and birds' eggs on occasion.
Anteater at the Smithsonian National Zoo
The Giant Anteater and regular anteaters have no teeth. Their physical digestion is aided by the pebbles and debris that they consume when they ingest insects.
The giant Anteater lives above ground, not burrowing underground like armadillos or aardvarks. The anteater finds a place to sleep, curls up, and covers itself with its bushy tail. Since the anteater is a very solitary animal, it can be easily awoken. When attacked, it can defend itself with its sabre-like anterior claws.
The female produces one offspring per birth. During much of its first year of life, a young Anteater will ride on its mother's back. It is generally acknowledged that giant Anteaters have a poor sense of sight but a keen sense of smell. Their sense of smell has been estimated to be some 40 times more sensitive than that of humans.
The name of the species, tridactyla, comes from "tri" and "dactylos", which is Greek for "three fingers". However, giant Anteaters actually have five toes on each paw (the fifth is vestigial). The name probably came about because only three of the front toes have prominent claws and can be easily seen. Giant Anteaters rarely make sounds. When they do it is mostly when they are young; the sound is a high-pitched, shrilly grunt noise. A baby that has fallen off his mother's back will grunt to its mother either to remind her that it has fallen off or to simply instruct her where it is or to get her attention.
The two Anteaters of the genus Tamandua, the Southern Tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla) and the Northern Tamandua (Tamandua mexicana), are much smaller than the Giant Anteater, and differ essentially from it in their habits, being mainly arboreal. They inhabit the dense primeval forests of South and Central America. The usual colour is yellowish-white, with a broad black lateral band, covering nearly the whole of the side of the body.
The silky Anteater (Cyclopes didactylus) is a native of the hottest parts of South and Central America, and about the size of a cat, of a general yellowish color, and exclusively arboreal in its habits.
Both the tamanduas and the silky Anteater possess partially prehensile tails.
Habitat
The anteater is extensively distributed in South and Central America, frequenting low swampy savannas, along the banks of rivers, and the depths of the humid forests, but is nowhere abundant.
Evolution
Anteaters are one of three surviving families of a once diverse group of mammals that occupied South America while it was geographically isolated from an invasion of animals from North America, the other two being the sloths and the armadillos.
At one time, it was assumed that anteaters were related to aardvarks and pangolins because of their physical similarities to those animals, but it has since been determined that these similarities are not a sign of a common ancestor, but of convergent evolution. All have evolved powerful digging forearms and long tongues and toothless tube-like snouts in order to make a living by raiding termite mounds. This similarity is the reason aardvarks are also commonly called "anteaters"; the pangolin has been called the "scaly anteater"; and the word "antbear" is a common term for both the aardvark and the giant anteater.
Anteaters are known to inhabit the Amazon Rainforest.
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Elephant Shrews- Rare
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Elephant shrews or jumping shrews are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name comes from a fancied resemblance between their long noses and the trunk of an elephant, and an assumed relationship with the true shrews (family Soricidae) in the order Insectivora because of their superficial similarities. As it has become plain that the elephant shrews are unrelated to the shrews, the biologist Jonathan Kingdon has proposed that they instead be called sengis,[3] a term derived from the Bantu languages of Africa.
They are widely distributed across the southern part of Africa, and although common nowhere, can be found in almost any type of habitat, from the Namib Desert to boulder-strewn outcrops in South Africa to thick forest. One species, the North African Elephant Shrew, remains in the semi-arid, mountainous country in the far north-west of the continent.
Contents
1 Characteristics
2 Feeding habits
3 Evolution
4 Classification
5 External links
6 Notes
7 References
Characteristics
Rhynchocyon petersi
Elephant shrews are small animals with brownish gray coats. Elephant shrews vary in size from about 10 to almost 30 centimetres, from just under 50 g to over 500 g. The Short-eared Elephant Shrew has an average size of 150 millimetres (5.9 in). All are quadrupedal with mouse-like tails, and rather long legs for their size which are used to move in a hopping fashion like rabbits. Although the size of the trunk varies from one species to another, all are able to twist it about in search of food. Their life span is about two and a half to four years in the wild.[4][page needed] They have large canine teeth, and also high-crowned cheek teeth like those of ungulates.[5] Their dental formula is
Although mostly diurnal and very active, they are difficult to trap and very seldom seen: elephant shrews are wary, well camouflaged, and adept at dashing away from threats. Several species make a series of cleared pathways through the undergrowth and spend their day patrolling them for insect life: if disturbed, the pathway provides an obstacle-free escape route.
Elephant shrews are not highly social animals, but many live in monogamous pairs, which share and defend a home territory, which they mark using scent glands.[5] The Rhynchocyon species also dig small conical holes in the soil, bandicoot style, but others may use natural crevices, or make leaf nests.
Short-eared elephant-shrews inhabit dry steppes and stone deserts of Southwestern Africa. They even can be found in the Namib-desert, one of the driest regions of the earth. Elephant-shrews live in pairs and defend territories. Females drive away other females while males try to ward off other males. Although they live in pairs, the partners do not care much for each other and their sole purpose of even associating with the opposite sex is for reproduction. Social behaviors are not very common and they even have separate nests. The one or two young are well developed at birth. They are able to run around just a few hours after birth.[6]
Females give birth to litters of one or three young several times a year, after a gestation period varying from 45 to 60 days. The young are born relatively well developed, but remain in the nest for several days before venturing outside.[5]
The mating period lasts for several days and is followed by six weeks of gestation. After mating, the pair will return to their solitary habits. The female then will give birth to 1-2 young in one of her leaf nests. Only for nursing purposes are the young visited by the mother. After 5 days the young are fed mashed insects with the milk, which are collected and transported in the cheek pouches of the female. The young then slowly start to explore their environment and start to hunt for insects. After about 15 days, the young will begin the migratory phase of their life which lessens the dependency of the young on their mother. The young will then establish their own home ranges (about 1 km2) and will become sexually active within 41–46 days.[7][8]
Feeding habits
All elephant-shrews eat mainly invertebrates, such as insects, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, and earthworms. An elephant-shrew uses its nose to find prey and uses its tongue to flick small food into its mouth, much like an anteater. Eating large prey can pose somewhat of a challenge for the elephant shrew. For example, a giant elephant-shrew struggling with an earthworm must first pin its prey to the ground with a forefoot. Then, turning its head to one side, it chews pieces off with its cheek teeth, much like a dog chewing a bone. This is a sloppy process, and many small pieces of worm drop to the ground; these are simply flicked up with the tongue. Some elephant-shrews also feed on small amounts of plant matter when available, especially new leaves, seeds, and small fruits.[7]
Evolution
A number of fossil species are known, all of them from Africa. There was a considerable diversification of macroscelids in the early tertiary period. Some, such as Myohyrax, were so similar to hyraxes that they were initially misidentified as belonging to that group, while others, such as Mylomygale were relatively rodent-like. These unusual forms all died out by the Pleistocene.[2] Although macroscelids have been classified with many groups, often on the basis of superficial characteristics, there is now considerable morphological and molecular evidence for placing them within Afrotheria, probably close to the base of Paenungulata.
Classification
In the past, elephant shrews have been classified with the shrews and hedgehogs as part of the Insectivora; regarded as distant relatives of the ungulates; grouped with the treeshrews; and lumped in with the hares and rabbits in the Lagomorpha. Recent molecular evidence, however, strongly supports a superorder Afrotheria which unites tenrecs, and golden moles with certain mammals that were previously presumed to be ungulates, including hyraxes, sirenians, aardvarks and elephants, as well as the elephant shrews.
