Wild World Wednesday ~ the Aardvark

We live in a Wild World. Today we are visiting Africa to check out the strange creature known as an aardvark. This critter is fun and fascinating, so let’s take a closer look.

What Are You?

The aardvark shares a little bit of a lot of different creatures’ features. It has the snout of a pig, ears like a rabbit, the long powerful tail of a kangaroo, webbed feet like a duck, claws like a bear and a super long, sticky tongue of an anteater.

So what exactly is the aardvark? It’s in a class all by itself (Orycteropus afer) and is truly one of a kind.

Wild World Fact…
…aardvark means earth pig in Afrikaan

Putting it all Together

The aardvark may seem like it was pieced together from other animals, but its entire body serves one purpose; to hunt and eat ants and termites.

The aardvark’s long snout is excellent at sniffing out bugs and has extra folds of skin and bristled hair that protects it from getting hurt. Once it’s located a food source the aardvark will use its 1.5 foot long tongue to suck them up with. The shovel-like claws on its front feet are extremely hard and sharp so it can dig through the tough termite mounds. If a particular termite hill is giving the aardvark trouble, it will balance on its tail while kicking at it with its powerful back legs. The aardvark is also very wary of its surroundings and is always listening with its rabbit-like ears for approaching danger.

Aardvarks can weigh up to 170 pounds and stand about 2 feet tall at the shoulder.

Wild World Fact…

…aardvarks can eat 50,000 termites for one meal

Hot Diggity-Diggers

The aardvark lives in the sandy grass-lands of Africa. It’s nocturnal and likes to sleep away the better part of each day. When it is active the aardvark moves from food source to food source digging small (10 foot long) tunnels to keep it safe from predators. A larger more permanent burrow is dug by the female when she’s ready to have a baby. The female will stay with her baby until it’s about 6 months old.

Once the small temporary and larger burrows are abandoned, they can become great homes for animals such as, pythons, porcupines, small mammals and even birds.
Wild World Fact…
…aardvarks are great swimmers and can also walk up to 30 km in one night searching for food.

Now that we’ve learned all about the amazing aardvark, print out this fun puzzle to find the hidden words – Aardvark Word Search

For more interesting articles and a new daily story, check out knowonder magazine for kids.  It's FREE and we have an app!