OLD WORLD ANT-—EATERS — Order, FODIENTIA 
ALTHOUGH in their outward form and habits there is consider- 
able resemblance between the American edentates and the scaly 
ant-eaters and termite-hunting aard-varks of Africa, and al- 
though until lately the latter have been included in the order 
Edentata, the differences of structure between them and the 
three American families are so deep-seated that modern care 
in classification compels their being set apart in another order; 
the propriety of this is emphasized by the fact that no extinct 
forms allied to either group have ever been found in the hemi- 
sphere of the other. . Furthermore, the distinctions of structure 
between the aard-varks and the pangolins are, in the view of 
some good naturalists, quite as important as those separating 
both from the ant-eaters, etc., of the New World, and hence they 
would assign each to an order by itself; but for the present it 
may be considered that the aard-varks and pangolins stand 
together in the order Fodientia. This group is inferior in 
general organization to the Edentata, and so far as we know 
has had no such a history in geological time. It represents an 
independent line of development ‘‘converging” toward a like- 
ness with the American edentates through having followed a 
similar method of making a living. 
The aard-varks are among the strangest of animals — in 
form somewhat like a thinly haired, yellowish bear, with a pig’s 
snout, donkey’s ears, and kangaroo’s tail! A full- 
grown one may measure six feet in total length. One 
kind inhabits South Africa, another northeastern Africa, and 
two others are known as fossils in the Pliocene and Oligocene 
485 
Aard-vark. 
