Day 6 cont
Professor Abraham
After that, we went to our next site and lucky for us, we spotted our next animal, the aardwolf.
"Come on students, we are lucky to find our next animal" I say.
"The aardwolf, also known as Proteles cristata is an insectivorous mammal in the family Hyaenidae, native to East and Southern Africa and its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch" I begin.
"It is also called maanhaar-jackal, Afrikaans for "mane-jackal", termite-eating hyena, and civet hyena, based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet" I say.
"Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals, it eats insects and their larvae,mainly termites and one aardwolf can lap up as many as 250,000 termites during a single night using its long, sticky tongue" I say.
"The aardwolf's tongue has adapted to be tough enough to withstand the strong bite of termites" I say.
"The aardwolf lives in the shrub lands of eastern and southern Africa, in open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs, it is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to seek food" I say.
Actually, the one caught a glimpse of has also left as well, but least they got to see it even once some have only seen it on pictures and they don't know how lucky they are to see such animals. With the way things are going now, I fear the wildlife would be there for the future generations to admire.
"The aardwolf is generally classified with the hyena family Hyaenidae, though it was formerly placed in its own family Protelidae" I continue.
"Early on, scientists felt that it was merely mimicking the striped hyena, which subsequently led to the creation of Protelidae but recent studies have suggested that the aardwolf probably diverged from other hyaenids early on but how early is still unclear, as the fossil record and genetic studies disagree by 10 million years" I say.
"The aardwolf is the only surviving species in the subfamily Protelinae and there is disagreement as to whether the species is monotypic, or can be divided into subspecies P. c. cristatus of Southern Africa and P. c. septentrionalis of East Africa" I say.
"The generic name proteles comes from two words both of Greek origin, protos and teleos which combined means "complete in front" based on the fact that they have five toes on their front feet and four on the rear and the specific name, cristatus, comes from Latin and means "provided with a comb", relating to their mane" I say.
"The aardwolf resembles a very thin striped hyena, but with a more slender muzzle, black vertical stripes on a coat of yellowish fur, and a long, distinct mane down the midline of the neck and back and it also has one or two diagonal stripes down the fore- and hind-quarters, along with several stripes on its legs"
"The mane is raised during confrontations to make the aardwolf appear larger and it is missing the throat spot that others in the family have and also its lower leg, from the knee down is all black, and its tail is bushy with a black tip" I say.
"The aardwolf is about 55 to 80 cm long, excluding its bushy tail, which is about 20–30 cm long, and stands about 40 to 50 cm tall at the shoulders" I continue.
"An adult aardwolf weighs approximately 7 to 10 kg, sometimes reaching 15 kg while the aardwolves in the south of the continent tend to be smaller about 10 kg than the eastern version which are around 14 kg" I say.
"This makes the aardwolf, the smallest extant member of the Hyaenidae family and the front feet have five toes each, unlike the four-toed hyena" I continue.
"The teeth and skull are similar to those of other hyenas, though smaller, and its cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects and it does still have canines, but, unlike other hyenas, these teeth are used primarily for fighting and defense" I say.
"Its ears, which are large, are very similar to those of the striped hyena" I add.
"As an aardwolf ages, it will normally lose some of its teeth, though this has little impact on its feeding habits due to the softness of the insects that it eats" I continue.
"Aardwolves live in open, dry plains and bushland, avoiding mountainous areas, due to their specific food requirements, they are only found in regions where termites of the family Hodotermitidae occur" I say.
"Termites of this family depend on dead and withered grass and are most populous in heavily grazed grasslands and savannahs, including farmland" I say.
"For most of the year, aardwolves spend time in shared territories consisting of up to a dozen dens, which are occupied for six weeks at a time" I say.
"There are two distinct populations of the aardwolves, one in Southern Africa, and another in East and Northeast Africa and the species does not occur in the intermediary miombo forests" I add.
"An adult pair, along with their most-recent offspring, occupies a territory of 1to 4 km2" I say.
"Aardwolves are shy and nocturnal, sleeping in burrows by day and they will, on occasion during the winter, become diurnal feeders, and this happens during the coldest periods as they then stay in at night to conserve heat" I say.
"They have often been mistaken for solitary animals, in fact, they live as monogamous pairs with their young and if their territory is infringed upon, they will chase the intruder up to 400 m or to the border and if the intruder is caught, which rarely happens, a fight will occur, which is accompanied by soft clucking, hoarse barking, and a type of roar" I say.
"The majority of incursions occur during mating season, when they can occur once or twice per week' I add.
"When food is scarce, the stringent territorial system may be abandoned and as many as three pairs may occupy a single territory" I say.
"The territory is marked by both sexes, as they both have developed anal glands from which they extrude a black substance that is smeared on rocks or grass stalks in 5 millimetre long streaks" I say.
"Aardwolves also have scent glands on the forefoot and penile pad, and they often mark near termite mounds within their territory every 20 minutes or so" I continue.
"If they are patrolling their territorial boundaries, the marking frequency increases drastically, to once every 50 m, at this rate, an individual may mark 60 marks per hour, and upwards of 200 per night" I add.
"An aardwolf pair may have up to 10 dens, and numerous feces middens, within their territory" I say.
"When they deposit excreta at their middens, they dig a small hole and cover it with sand and their dens are usually abandoned aardvark, springhare, or porcupine dens, or on occasion they are crevices in rocks" I continue.
"They will also dig their own dens, or enlarge dens started by springhares, but they typically will only use one or two dens at a time, rotating through all of their dens every six months" I say.
"During the summer, they may rest outside their den during the night, and sleep underground during the heat of the day" I add.
"Aardwolves are not fast runners nor are they particularly adept at fighting off predators, therefore, when threatened, the aardwolf may attempt to mislead its foe by doubling back on its tracks. If confronted, it may raise its mane in an attempt to appear more menacing and it also emits a foul-smelling liquid from its anal glands" I say.
"The aardwolf feeds primarily on termites and more specifically on Trinervitermes as this genus of termites has different species throughout the aardwolf's range" I say.
"In East Africa, they eat Trinervitermes bettonianus, in central Africa, they eat Trinervitermes rhodesiensis, and in southern Africa, they eat T. trinervoides" I continue.
"Their technique consists of licking them off the ground as opposed to the aardvark, which digs into the mound and they locate their food by sound and also from the scent secreted by the soldier termites and an aardwolf may consume up to 250,000 termites per night using its long, sticky tongue" I say.
"They do not destroy the termite mound or consume the entire colony, thus ensuring that the termites can rebuild and provide a continuous supply of food" I continue.
"They often memorize the location of such nests and return to them every few months, during certain seasonal events, such as the onset of the rainy season and the cold of midwinter, the primary termites become scarce, so the need for other foods becomes pronounced, so during these times, the southern aardwolf will seek out Hodotermes mossambicus, a type of harvester termite which is active in the afternoon, which explains some of their diurnal behavior in the winter.