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Aardvark

Orycteropus afer · medium

The aardvark is the only surviving member of its entire order, Tubulidentata, and has no close living relatives at all. Its nearest kin are elephants and hyraxes, at a considerable distance. Everything it resembles — anteaters, pangolins, armadillos — it resembles by convergence, because digging up ants and termites imposes similar solutions on whatever attempts it.

It is superbly equipped for that job. Powerful forelimbs with spade-shaped claws can break into a termite mound that would resist a pickaxe. A long sticky tongue collects the insects. The nostrils can be sealed against dust and swarming defenders, and are lined with dense hair to filter what gets through. Its teeth have no enamel and grow continuously, worn down by a lifetime of grit.

Aardvarks are strictly nocturnal, solitary, and rarely seen even where common. They range widely across sub-Saharan Africa in almost any habitat with enough termites and diggable soil.

Their wider importance is as excavators. An aardvark burrow, once abandoned, becomes shelter for warthogs, porcupines, hyenas, mongooses, owls, lizards and snakes. In some landscapes remarkably little else can dig a hole that size, which makes the aardvark a keystone species that most of its beneficiaries never encounter.

Where it lives

Worml lists the aardvark as native to 15 countries — Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Its habitat is savanna, grassland and bushveld.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Aardvark is rated medium. To solve the round you need to find any 8 of its 15 listed countries. How scoring works →

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