“…And today we are talking about an animal that is perpetually in 3rd grade. But less on that later.”
The plains of Africa are home to a lot of pretty strange-looking animals. I mean, have you really thought about how weird a giraffe is? But one chimeric beast would definitely leave you scratching your head if it came across your path. Is it a pig? Is it a rabbit? Is it an armadillo? Why is it the size of a Doberman? An animal with a name many of us learned to spell thanks to a certain PBS show, the aardvark is equipped with the tools, know-how, and chutzpah to practice actual earthbending here in Life, Death, and Taxonomy.
Description of the Aardvark
The aardvark looks sort of like a Dex-build armadillo.
They have large bunny ears and a long, piggish snout.
Their backs are rounded like an intimidated cat.
Aardvark feet are tipped with something between a pig hoof and claws, allowing it to switch between the digitigrade and plantigrade positions.
Measure Up
Welcome to the beloved Measure Up segment. The official listener’s favorite part of the show! The part of the show when we present the animal’s size and dimension in relatable terms through a quiz that’s fun for the whole family. It’s also the part of the show that’s introduced by you when you send in audio of yourself saying, singing, or chittering the words Measure Up into ldtaxonomy at gmail dot com. We don’t have a new Measure Up intro!
Weight
- 60 and 80 kilograms (130–180 lb)
- How many aardvarks go into the total weight of whiskey produced by Ardbeg distillery?
- Hint: Ardbeg is a distillery in isle of Islay, Argyll, and Bute, Scotland, which means that they produce Scotch whisky. They use malted barley, which means the barley was allowed to partially germinate in water before being air dried.
- 16,275 aardvarks. They produce roughly 1,302,000 kg of scotch.
Length
- 105 and 130 centimeters (3.44–4.27 ft)
- How of the longest cucumber would go into the length of an aardvark?
- Hint: The cucumber was grown by amateur gardener Sebastian Suskiin in Southampton, UK. He was hospitalized for a week with a leaking blood vessel in his brain at a crucial point in the cucumber’s growth but recovered in time to claim the title.
- 1.14 cucumbers. The cucumber was 113.4 cm (3 ft 8.6 in)
Fast Facts about the Aardvark
Aardvarks live in the southern half of Africa and they prefer areas with soft soil and no rocky terrain.
They eat ants and termites, but they will also eat aardvark cucumbers which depend on them for seed dispersal.
Aardvarks are nocturnal and solitary, walking around hunting for bugs.
Their large ears help them avoid predators like lions, hyenas, dogs, and leopards. When they detect danger, they can dig rapidly to get out of sight.
When their long hoof-claws can’t get them out of danger by digging, they might be stabbing. They will roll onto their backs in the jiu-jitsu position and rake at predators with their claws.
Major Fact: Dig Dug
Since the aardvark eats exclusively underground critters like ants and termites, and it sets up its home underground to avoid predators and the hot African sun, it should be no surprise that the aardvark is pretty good at digging.
Their burrows are extensive tunnels that can reach up to 10 feet below the ground
It uses its exceptional nose and hearing to hunt for ant and termite nests as it forages. Its sight isn’t great and it’s colorblind.
Its foraging range is up to 19 miles
Once it gets a good whiff of some ants, the aardvark will dig a v-shaped trench in just seconds. It can dig at a rate of 2 feet every 15 seconds. So in about a minute, it can have an 8-foot hole. This is ideal for avoiding predators
Once it has its V-shaped trench, it will sniff around until it finds the nest it detected earlier and dig in.
Like the anteater, aardvarks can eat a lot of ants or termites in one go – up to 50,000. It uses its sticky tongue to lap up the insects.
Interestingly, a single termite mound doesn’t provide enough food. So aardvarks look for termite nests that are moving since they move together in large underground columns
Ending: So go out on the hunt, slurp up some ants, and dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel quick before the hyenas come like the aardvark here in LDT.