Photolady2014 wrote:
Our guides got very excited when we spotted this Aardwolf. They said it is extremely rare to see one out in the daylight. Not a great photo, but a lucky one I guess!
The aardwolf is an insectivorous mammal, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called "maanhaar-jackal" and in Nama, "ant hyena" or civet hyena, based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet. The aardwolf is in the same family as the hyena. Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf doesn't hunt large animals. It eats insects and their larvae, mainly termites; one aardwolf can lap up as many as 250,000 termites during a single night using its long, sticky tongue.
Our guides got very excited when we spotted this A... (
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I have never seen this particular species before. It is nice looking compared to some of the rougher varieties I was familiar with. Thank you for the history/nomenclature of it.