464 EDENTATES 



THE ANT-BEAR, OR AARD-VARK 



{Orycteropus afer) 

 Aard- Vark, Cape Dutch ; Saherar, Abyssinian 



One of the most remarkable of all living warm-blooded quadrupeds 

 is the exclusively African creature to which the Cape Dutch have 

 given the name of aard-vark, meaning earth-hog. And although this 

 strange animal has nothing to do with swine (any more than it has 

 with bears), there is something to be said in favour of the Dutch 

 designation ; for in the matter of bodily dimensions it is not far 

 removed from a medium-sized pig, while its sparsely haired, half-naked 

 skin is distinctly pig-like, as are its elongated and slender muzzle 

 and face, small eyes, and long, pointed, upright ears. With these, how- 

 ever, the pig- like resemblances come to an end, for the short fore- 

 legs terminate in four toes furnished with powerful curved claws for 

 digging, while the hind feet are provided with five broad claw-like nails. 

 The tail, too, is quite unlike that of a pig, being long, tapering, and 

 of enormous thickness at the root. It passes, in fact, almost im- 

 perceptibly into the body, so that it is difficult to say exactly where the 

 trunk ends and the tail begins. In this respect (to use the name 

 commonly in vogue among English sportsmen) the ant-bear gives 

 evidence of its relatively low grade in the zoological scale ; the 

 imperceptible gradation of tail into trunk being a trait derived from 

 reptilian ancestors. 



The ant-bear is altogether peculiar in the matter of teeth, having 

 none in the front of the jaws ; while the five or six pairs on the sides- 

 are of simple, subcylindrical ^orm, although internally they are com- 

 posed of a number of closely pressed vertical prisms, or columns, recalling 

 in some degree the section of a palm-stem. 



Till 1890 the ant-bear was supposed to have no deciduous or milk 

 teeth. In that year the existence of small functional predecessors to 

 the cheek, or molar, series of teeth was, however, discovered ; and 

 recently Dr. R. Broom, in a letter to Nature, has announced the 

 existence of a complete series of milk-teeth, a few of which may be 

 functional for a short period. In other words, it is evident that the 

 ancestors of the ant-bears were furnished with incisors, canines, pre- 

 molars, and molars, all of which were alike preceded by deciduous 

 teeth. More remarkable still is the fact that the number of cheek- 



