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The aardvark is sometimes colloquially called the "African ant bear", [6] "anteater" (not to be confused with the South American anteaters), or the "Cape anteater" [6] after the Cape of Good Hope. The name "aardvark" is Afrikaans ( pronounced [ˈɑːrtfark] ) and comes from earlier Afrikaans erdvark . [ 6 ]
The name anteater refers to the species' diet, which consists mainly of ants and termites. Anteater has also been used as a common name for a number of animals that are not in Vermilingua, including the echidnas, numbat, pangolins, and aardvark.
Aardvarks and pangolins are now placed in individual orders, and the new order Xenarthra was erected to group the remaining families (which are all related). The morphology of xenarthrans generally suggests that the anteaters and sloths are more closely related to each other than either is to the armadillos, glyptodonts, and pampatheres; this ...
The giant anteater is the most terrestrial of the living anteater species; specialization for life on the ground appears to be a new trait in anteater evolution. The transition to life on the ground could have been aided by the expansion of open habitats such as savanna in South America and the abundance of native colonial insects , such as ...
The order Pholidota comprises the eight species of pangolin. Pangolins are anteaters and have the powerful claws, elongated snout and long tongue seen in the other unrelated anteater species. Family: Manidae. Genus: Manis. Giant pangolin, Manis gigantea LR/lc; Ground pangolin, Manis temminckii LR/nt; Long-tailed pangolin, Manis tetradactyla LR/lc
Tamandua is a genus of anteaters in the Myrmecophagidae family with two species: the southern tamandua (T. tetradactyla) and the northern tamandua (T. mexicana). [2] They live in forests and grasslands, are semiarboreal, and possess partially prehensile tails. They mainly eat ants and termites, but they occasionally eat bees, beetles, and ...
The snout and the scientific name of the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) reflect its feeding habits.. Myrmecophagy is a feeding behavior in animals, defined by the consumption of termites or ants—particularly as pertaining to those animal species whose diets are largely, or completely, composed of these insect types.
The first aardvark fossil discovered was originally named Orycteropus gaudryi (now Amphiorycteropus) and was found in Turolian deposits on the island of Samos. [1] Since then, representatives of the order Tubulidentata have been located from the Oligocene in what is now Europe, and it is believed that the order probably originated around 65–70 million years ago or in the Paleocene.