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Name : Aardwolf ( Proteles cristatus )
Where it lives : Savannah and grasslands in eastern and southern Africa
Aardwolves, which translates as “earth wolves” in Afrikaans, are the smallest of the four hyena species.
What it corrode : Termites and ant
Why it ’s awesome : Unlike their kernel - eating relatives , these solitary , nocturnal little hyaena hold out on a dieting almost whole made up of white ant . They can gobble up to 300,000 of the insect every night , using their sticky , super - retentive tongues to lap them up .
Aardwolf tongues are across-the-board and rounded , with magnanimous , treated papillae , or the protrusion on the clapper that hold back taste bud . The sand they lap up with the termiteshelps the hyenas ' digestion .
An aardwolf pup photographed on the Kapama Game Reserve in South Africa.
Thanks to this specialized diet , aardwolves have flatten , oarlock - alike tooth that ca n’t manducate meat . While the animals still have fangs , unlike their meat - corrode similitude , they only use them todefend their territory and cubs .
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Aardwolves , which interpret as " earth wolves " in Afrikaans , are the smallest of the four hyena species , measuring 22 to 31 in ( 55 to 80 centimeters ) long and up to 20 inches ( 50 cm ) tall . Unlike spotted hyenas ( Crocuta genus Crocuta ) and uncase hyaena ( Hyaena hyaena ) , aardwolves do n’t live on in packs and only come together to mate and rearward vernal .
This lonely life-style also stems from their taste for white ant . They spend many hours clobber up termites each night , and this forage - establish dieting is n’t suited for group living .
scientist are n’t sure how aardwolves first develop . The mintage ' complete loss from its living congenator and nonextant ancestors means it ’s a " ghost descent , " harmonise to a 2022statement from Berkeley News . The metal money is believed to have emerged about 15 million yr ago , base on genic disagreement from other hyena specie , but the earliest fossils resemble the species particular date to just 4 million years ago .
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However , fossil excavate in China dating back 12 to 15 million year agorevealed an nonextant species of hyaena — Gansuyaena megalotis — that had also developed a white ant - eat up diet . While not a direct ancestor of aardwolves , the find help to fill the gaps in our intellect of how these unusual hyaena came to be .
" With these fossils , we can really start to get at the inquiry , ' how does an otherwise very specialised lineage for eating meat have a member , a weird cousin , that start down this totally different path of becoming a specialised insectivore , a termite specialist ? ' " written report cobalt - authorJack Tseng , assistant professor of integrative biological science at the University of California , said in the statement .
" Now , we have the starting point and ending point , which is today . The next step is to figure out what happened in the intervening 10 million twelvemonth of this ancestry . "
