The aardwolf is an insectivorous hyaenid species, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called the maanhaar-jackal, termite-eating hyena and civet hyena, based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet.
Carnivora is an order of placental mammals that have specialized in primarily eating flesh, whose members are formally referred to as carnivorans. The order Carnivora is the fifth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species.
Hyenas or hyaenas are feliform carnivoran mammals belonging to the family Hyaenidae. With just four extant species, it is the fourth-smallest family in the order Carnivora and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia. Despite their low diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most African ecosystems.
Australopithecus is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera Homo, Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus evolved from some Australopithecus species. Australopithecus is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes Ardipithecus, though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of Australopithecus. Species include A. garhi, A. africanus, A. sediba, A. afarensis, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali and A. deyiremeda. Debate exists as to whether some Australopithecus species should be reclassified into new genera, or if Paranthropus and Kenyanthropus are synonymous with Australopithecus, in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency.
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
Proteles is a genus of distinctive hyenas which contain the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) and its close fossil relatives. It is the only extant genus of the subfamily Protelinae.
Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet of Applegarth FRS FRSE FLS FSA was a Scottish naturalist. He is known for his editing of a long series of natural history books, The Naturalist's Library.
Sauroposeidon is a genus of sauropod dinosaur known from several incomplete specimens including a bone bed and fossilized trackways that have been found in the U.S. states of Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas.
Tankwa Karoo National Park is a national park in South Africa. The park lies about 70 km due west of Sutherland near the border of the Northern Cape and Western Cape, in one of the most arid regions of South Africa, with areas receiving less than 100 mm of average annual precipitation, moisture-bearing clouds from the Atlantic Ocean being largely stopped by the Cederberg mountains. Other low areas receive little more, as the Roodewerf station with 180 mm of mean annual rainfall. In the hottest areas of the park, the mean maximum temperature in January is 38.9 °C, and in July the mean minimum temperature ranges from about 5 to 7 °C. Before this Park's proclamation, the only protected area of Succulent Karoo was the 2 square kilometre patch of the Gamkaberg Nature Reserve. Succulent Karoo has, together with the Cape Floral Kingdom, been declared a Biodiversity Hotspot by Conservation International.
Chasmaporthetes, also known as hunting or running hyena, is an extinct genus of hyenas distributed in Eurasia, North America, and Africa during the Pliocene-Pleistocene epochs, living from 4.9 million to 780,000 years ago, existing for about 4.12 million years. The genus probably arose from Eurasian Miocene hyenas such as Thalassictis or Lycyaena, with C. borissiaki being the oldest known representative. The species C. ossifragus was the only hyena to cross the Bering land bridge into the Americas, and ranged over what is now Arizona and Mexico during Blancan and early Irvingtonian Land Mammal ages, between 5.0 and 1.5 million years ago.
Clifford Meth is an American writer, editor, and publisher best known for his dark fiction, as well as his publishing imprint Aardwolf Publishing. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."
Nxai Pan National Park is a national park in north-eastern Botswana, consisting of Nxai Pan, which is one of the Makgadikgadi Pan salt flats. Nxai Pan National Park lies just north of the Maun-Nata main road and adjoins Makgadikgadi Pans National Park on its northern border. The pan itself is a fossil lake bed of approximately 40 km2 in size.
Feliformia is a suborder within the order Carnivora consisting of "cat-like" carnivorans, including cats, hyenas, mongooses, viverrids, and related taxa. Feliformia stands in contrast to the other suborder of Carnivora, Caniformia.
The Viverrinae represent the largest subfamily of the Viverridae comprising three genera, which are subdivided into six species native to Africa and Southeast Asia. This subfamily was denominated and first described by John Edward Gray in 1864.
Abe Bailey Nature Reserve is a protected area in the Merafong City Local Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa. It is situated near Carletonville, beside the township of Khutsong on the West Rand. It is about 4,200 hectares in size.
Lycyaena is an extinct genus of terrestrial carnivore in the family Hyaenidae. Lycyaena was a cursorial hunting hyaena as opposed to full-time scavenger. It has been suggested by R. F. Ewer that Lycyaena may be a possible ancestor to today's aardwolf.
The Red Sea coastal desert is deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion of Egypt and Sudan.
Bolt's Farm is a palaeontological site in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng province, South Africa. With more than 30 fossil deposits dating back 4.5 Ma, it is one of the oldest sites currently discovered in the Cradle of Humankind. It consists of multiple cavities, pits, and quarries, where caves have eroded away, exposing their fossiliferous interiors. Although this site has not yet yielded the hominid fossils for which the Cradle of Humankind is known, Bolt's Farm is still an important source of fossils from various species of Early Pliocene and Plio-Pleistocene fauna, including primates and big cats.
