In photos: awesome aardvarks

We were recently sent these awesome aardvark images by KZN Wildlife game capturer Jed Bird. We just had to share them with you, because they’re so elusive and possibly one of the oddest-looking creatures on the continent.

Most people know the aardvark simply because it is the first word to appear in the English dictionary yet few have actually ever seen this peculiar animal. Their range extends over much of Sub-Saharan Africa right to the fynbos of the southern most tip of Africa.

They are one of Africa’s strangest creatures with somewhat pig-like features, one really does struggle to imagine any other animal that even closely resembles it. Seemingly due to its unfortunate appearance or more than likely due to its secretive nature the aardvark is almost strictly nocturnal. However, being an African mammal it is not covered in a very warm coat. In fact it hardly has any hair at all. This being the case, in the winter months in certain areas where night time temperature can drop below zero the sparsely pelted aardvark is force to forage during the late afternoon hours before it gets too cold.

This is exactly the case in the Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape. One cold winter’s afternoon I was fortunate enough to stumble upon one of these fascinating creatures going about its usually moonlit activities. Not knowing much about there visual abilities I tried in vain to sneak up to it and photograph its antics. I soon learnt that there eyesight is far from poor. It soon picked up on my presence and bounded off at a surprising pace before disappearing down one of its bolt-holes. Over the next few weeks I slowly started to gain the animals’ confidence and it was not long before it completely tolerated me being within five meters of it while it foraged noisily for ants and termites.

It was an absolute privilege to be allowed into such a secretive animal’s world, even if it was just for a couple hours a day over two weeks. As a human being there is something very soul enriching when an animal of any kind puts aside its inherent fear of bipedal homo-sapiens and reveals to you secrets no man or book could ever show you.