How do aardvarks move

If they need to escape, they can dig fast or run in zigzags. If not, they can strike with their claws, tail and shoulders, and have been known to flip onto their backs and lash out with all fours. If attacked in the tunnel, aardvarks can seal the tunnel off behind them or turn around and attack with their claws. Aardvarks are solitary and only come together to mate; females have a gestation period of seven months. One cub is born between May and July and will remain in the burrow for the first two weeks of life.

Cubs start eating termites at around nine weeks of age, and start digging burrows at six months, but remain with the mother until the following mating season. The extent of threats is mostly unknown, and no particular conservation measures are in place currently. Potential threats include the bushmeat trade, subsistence hunting and habitat loss due to agriculture.

Facebook Twitter Instagram. Aardvarks inhabit large home ranges 2 to 5 square kilometers and are typically found in very low densities. Kingdon, The only known sounds made by aardvarks are grunts and, in cases of extreme fear, bleats. Both sexes have glands on their elbows and hips, which may aid in mating or spacing of individuals. However, scent marking has not been observed. Aardvarks have poor vision because their retinas contain only rods, which allow them to see at night, but leave them colorblind.

They have a very acute sense of hearing and long ears that can be moved independently, as well as folded back and closed while tunneling. Aardvarks have an exceptional sense of smell due to structures in the nose that increase turbinal surface area, improving the detection of olfactory signals.

The olfactory region of the brain is highly developed in aardvarks, giving the middle profile of the skull a swollen appearance. Aardvarks eat at night and are myrmecophagous, i. They dig rapidly into the sides or center of ant and termite nests or mounds, while feeding at the same time. The ants and termites are swept into their small mouth with their long, sticky tongue.

Aardvarks swallow without chewing their food, or after chewing their food very little. The insects are digested in the pyloric region of the muscular, gizzard-like stomach. Some of the predator defenses that ants and termites use against myrmecophagous animals, such as pangolins , anteaters , and echidnas , include biting, stinging, chemical defenses, and building hard mounds.

These defenses do not seem to affect aardvarks. Colonies of ants and termites are rarely destroyed after an aardvark feeds and can be built back up and reestablished. If confronted by a predator, an aardvark will attempt to dig a hole in which to hide, taking about 10 minutes to completely cover itself up.

If it cannot dig a hole, it will stand upright on its hind legs and tail, or lay on its back, and defend itself with its large front claws. Humans are the primary predator of aardvarks, but lions, hyenas, and leopards are also known to kill them. Aardvarks are important in their ecosystem because the holes they dig are used by a variety of other animals for shelter.

These include hyenas , warthogs , squirrels , hedgehogs , mongooses , and bats , as well as birds and reptiles. Sometimes humans hunt aardvarks for their meat and hide, although products made out of aardvarks are subject to trade restrictions. Aardvarks may help control termite and ant populations, which are pests to humans. Aardvark burrows can present a hazard for vehicles. Aardvarks are widespread, however, they have been exterminated in many agricultural areas. They are vulnerable in all settled areas and endangered or extinct in areas with a high concentration of people.

They are often hunted by farmers and ranchers who find their hole digging inconvenient or dangerous. Cultivation and pesticide use has resulted in the elimination of their food source in some areas. Recent studies based on DNA sequence analysis have placed aardvarks in a taxon referred to as Afrotheria.

Other animals in this group include elephants , hyraxes , sirenians , elephant-shrews , golden moles , and tenrecs. Afrotherians are thought to have originated and evolved in Africa. The palate ends at the posterior end of the palatine bones ; it is not extended posteriorly by the pterygoids as is the case in pangolins. No enamel is present on their cheek teeth , which are made up of hexagonal prisms of dentine that can be seen under a dissecting microscope.

These teeth are, however, surrounded by a layer of cementum. They are rootless and continuously growing. The dentition of aardvarks is also unusual because, while they are diphyodont , the milk teeth are small, variable in number, and shed before the animal is born.

Like pangolins, aardvarks have a long, protrusile tongue and a gizzard-like stomach. They seem to rely primarily on their sense of smell for locating prey. Their nostrils have peculiar fleshy tentacles and dense hairs; these serve to seal the nostrils when the animal is digging. Aardvarks were once thought to be closely related to pangolins and xenarthrans. We now think that their resemblance to members of those groups is a result of convergent adaptation for eating ants, and that their real affinities lie with the Sirenia , Hyracoidea , and Proboscidea.

Their fossil record is scanty; it begins in the early Miocene a few older fossils have been questionably associated with this group. There is one Family Orycteropodidae and one species Orycteropus afer in this order. Aardvarks are found in Africa south of the Sahara.

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