Mammals
Aardwolf
Proteles cristata · also called aardwolf, maanhaar-jackal
The aardwolf is a hyena that decided not to be a hyena. It kept the family’s sloping back and shaggy mane but shrank to the size of a fox, let its teeth wither to useless pegs, and built its entire life around one food: termites, licked off the ground by the quarter-million every night.
Overview
Aardwolves live in open, dry grassland and savanna with plenty of termite mounds, in two separate populations — one in East Africa, one in southern Africa. They are nocturnal, solitary or in pairs, and spend the night moving slowly across their large territory, lapping up foraging termites from the surface with a broad, sticky tongue. They shelter by day in burrows, often ones dug by aardvarks or springhares.
A termite specialist
The aardwolf feeds almost entirely on snouted harvester termites (Trinervitermes), whose soldiers spray a noxious terpene that repels most predators — a chemical the aardwolf tolerates. It can take 250,000–300,000 termites in a single night. It does not dig into mounds; it takes the workers and soldiers that come out to feed. Because it swallows them whole, its cheek teeth have shrunk to tiny, widely spaced pegs, and its jaws are weak.
Defence without weapons
An animal that kills nothing has no way to fight, so the aardwolf bluffs. Threatened, it erects a long black mane down its spine and arches its back to look far larger — the Afrikaans name maanhaar means “mane hair” — and if that fails it runs, or releases a foul musk from its anal glands.
Persecuted by mistake
The aardwolf is completely harmless to livestock and people, but its jackal-like look and nocturnal habits near farms have led to it being shot, poisoned, and dug out by farmers who take it for a lamb-killer. In fact it helps farmers by keeping grass-eating termites in check.
Status
The aardwolf is Least Concern and common where suitable habitat and termites persist. Local threats are persecution, road deaths, and the loss of termite populations to overgrazing and pesticides.
Aardwolf: common questions
Is the aardwolf a type of hyena?
Yes. It is the smallest and most specialised member of the hyena family (Hyaenidae), which otherwise contains the spotted, brown, and striped hyenas. The aardwolf split off early and took a completely different path — instead of the bone-crushing scavenging and hunting lifestyle of its relatives, it became a termite specialist. It keeps the sloping hyena back, the mane, and the general shape, but shrank to fox size and let its teeth and jaws become almost functionless for anything but licking.
How does it eat so many termites without getting bitten to death?
The aardwolf feeds mainly on Trinervitermes, a genus of snouted harvester termites whose soldiers defend the colony by squirting a sticky, toxic terpene from a nozzle on the head. Most insect-eaters avoid these termites because of the chemical. The aardwolf has evolved a tolerance for the terpene and simply laps up workers and soldiers alike from the surface as they forage at night, using a wide tongue coated in sticky saliva. It does not dig into the mound like an aardvark or pangolin; it takes the termites that come out to feed.
Is the aardwolf dangerous to livestock or people?
No, and this has been a persistent problem for it. The aardwolf is harmless — it kills nothing larger than an insect, has no real weapons, and flees from threats. But because it looks somewhat like a jackal and comes out at night near farms, it has historically been shot, poisoned, and dug out by farmers who mistake it for a lamb-killer or lump it in with genuine predators. It actually benefits farmers by controlling termites that would otherwise compete with livestock for grass.
How is it different from an aardvark?
They are not related at all — the aardvark is in its own order, closer to elephants and hyraxes, while the aardwolf is a carnivoran in the hyena family. Both names come from Afrikaans (aarde = earth), both eat social insects at night in African grasslands, and both are often confused. But the aardvark is a large, near-hairless, pig-like digger that rips open termite and ant mounds with powerful claws, while the aardwolf is a small, furry, jackal-shaped animal that just licks termites off the ground and does not dig for them.