Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Hyaenidae > Proteles > Proteles cristata

Proteles cristata (Aardwolf)

Synonyms: Proteles cristatus; Proteles typicus; Viverra cristata; Viverra hyenoides

Wikipedia Abstract

The aardwolf (Proteles cristata) is a small, insectivorous mammal, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called "maanhaar jackal" (Afrikaans for "mane jackal") or civet hyena, based on the secretions from their anal glands, reminiscent of civets. The aardwolf is in the same family as the hyenas. Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals. It eats insects, mainly termites – one aardwolf can eat about 250,000 termites during a single night, using its long, sticky tongue to capture them. The aardwolf lives in the shrublands of eastern and southern Africa – open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs. It is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to se
View Wikipedia Record: Proteles cristata

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
15
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
41
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 29.2
EDGE Score: 3.41
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  22.046 lbs (10.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  275 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [3]  1 year 8 months
Gestation [1]  84 days
Litter Size [1]  3
Maximum Longevity [1]  20 years
Nocturnal [4]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [3]  30 inches (75 cm)
Weaning [1]  4 months 12 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Hodotermes mossambicus[5]
Trinervitermes bettonianus[5]
Trinervitermes rhodesiensis[5]
Trinervitermes trinervoides[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ancylostoma protelesis <Unverified Name>[6]
Echidnophaga gallinacea (sticktight flea)[7]
Echidnophaga larina[7]
Haemaphysalis spinulosa[8]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 5Proteles cristata, C. E. Koehler and P. R. K. Richardson, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 363, pp. 1-6 (1990)
♦ 6Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 7International Flea Database
♦ 8Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0