Aardvarks Suffer In Extended Drought

It is not only livestock that are threatened during multi-year droughts; wildlife, too, can succumb to the stress. Dr Nora Weyer and other researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand have found that aardvarks’ feeding in the daytime during extended drought may be a sign that they are starving.

- Dr Nora Weyer

Aardvarks occur across most of sub-Saharan Africa, but very few people have seen one, as they are solitary, active mostly at night, and live in burrows. They use their spadelike claws to build these burrows and dig up ants and termites on which they feed. However, seeing aardvarks feeding in the day is becoming more common in the drier parts of the region. While catching sight of an aardvark may be a delight for wildlife enthusiasts, researchers of the Wildlife Conservation Physiology Laboratory at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) warn that the aardvarks’ behaviour does not bode well for this secretive animal.

New research by the Wits team, with collaborators from the University of Cape Town and University of Pretoria, has revealed how the shift from night-time to daytime activity is affecting the well-being of aardvarks in a warming and drying world. The researchers studied aardvarks living at Tswalu, a reserve in the Kalahari that lies on the edge of the aardvark’s distribution range and provides support and infrastructure for researchers through the Tswalu Foundation. The results have been published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology.