About me:I'm an Aardvark (Orycterus afer) and I live in Africa. There really is nothing quite like me. I am classified in my own family Orycteropodidae which is the only family in the order Tubulidentata. We grow to about 2.3 metres long including our tails, and weigh 110-180 pounds (50-80 kg) - so of course we weigh about the same as a person! I have a very nice long tongue, which makes it much easier for me to catch termites than it is for people, which is probably why people don't eat termites - what a pity for them! Often I stick my tongue out and walk about with it coiled like a clock spring, showing it off. I don't shave very often and grow my exquisite white whiskers to about 1-2 inches (25-50mm) long. Like the Cornish burrowing people (aardpeople), I have a strong affinity to the underground. The underground is safe from the perils of the overworld. When pursued by enemies, we aardvarks have three choices. We can run but we are hopeless at that. We can fight with the sharp claws of all four feet and will even roll over so we can slash with all 4 feet at once. However, to be really safe, we can dig to escape the perils of the creatures which inhabit the overworld. Us Aardvarks excel at burrowing. An aardvark digging in soft earth can beat several people armed with shovels! Our powerful forefeet can even tear through hard, sun-baked ground. Legend has it that the only thing which can dig faster than us, is a Cornish miner. We prefer to avoid the predators which inhabit the overworld. We have acute hearing, and flee for our nice safe burrows at the least hint of danger. Our main area of expertise is digging. We dig in the same manner as dogs, pushing dirt backwards under our bodies. However, we aardvarks rest on our thick tails (as well as their hind legs). Our nostrils are sealed from dirt by fleshy tentacles and dense hairs. It really is super fun. When a pile of lovely dirt is sufficiently high, we push it back or to the side using a hind foot and sometimes our tails. We Aardvarks aren’t commonly seen because we’re mostly nocturnal - nice and dark, like the safe underworld. We usually spend the day underground in our burrows, curled up in a tight circle, our hind limbs and tails protecting our snouts. Sometimes the overworld is briefly tolerable when sunning ourselves at our burrow entrances in the early morning. In fact our habits are very like the Cornish mine dwelling humans. We aardvarks make homes by excavating burrows that are about ten feet (3 meters) long. An aardvark tunnel ends in a chamber large enough to turn in. (We generally enter and exit headfirst.) The main difference between us and Cornish miners is that we eat termites - really yummy! But then as already explained, humans are not so well adapted. They haven't got the long sticky twelve inch (300mm) tongues, necessary to catch the termite dinner efficiently. Neither do they have our powerful claws adapted to breaking open hard clay termite nests. Humans don't have narrow heads that can be thrust into holes and crevices. Humans therefore have to make do with other less appetising foodstuffs. What a pity - more termites for us. |
