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Archive 1

Infobox

Blue on purple? What were you thinking? It hurts! Shinobu 10:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"Ant Bear"? Never.

...sometimes called "antbear"[1] I've read somewhere (but cannot cite the source now) that in fact the Aardvark has never been called 'ant bear' by anyone except in one dictionary that said "sometimes called Ant Bear" and in all the other dictionaries that unthinkingly copied and recopied it. (This could be a historic precursor to the mirror sites, copycats, and other Web references that unthinkingly copy Wikipedia-isms.) Of course, even if false, the "ant bear" claim has plenty of citeable sources now. MrDroopy 08:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

So, should we strike that sobriquet from the article, or should we say that it's erroneously referred to as the "antbear?"--Mr Fink 15:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource thesis

There is a text on Wikisource s:Image:Aardvark.pdf that we need to work out what to do with. Wikisource does not to my knowledge host many recent thesis, but it isnt totally beyond the scope of the project. If this thesis is very useful, we could convert it to wikitext. Expert opinion on the quality of this thesis would be useful. John Vandenberg 08:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Human relation?

I remember reading somewhere or hearing from someone a long time ago that aardvarks are more related to us than apes or related closely to humans, or something similarly to this. I know it sounds ridiculous but I do remember I just want to know if anyone can verify this? JTBX (talk) 02:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I found something- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1070197.ece JTBX (talk) 03:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This is talking about the ancestor of the Placentalia as a whole, and is basically saying that the aardvark is the most 'primitive' of all such animals, having changed the least (genetically speaking) since the group first appeared. So, if we are descended from an animal with some biochemical/genetic features in common with an aardvark (note: not a creature that's necessarily much like a modern aardvark), then so is every other placental mammal. So we're no more closely related to them than, say, a whale or a bat is. Having said which, aardvarks being that primitive is by no means irrelevant to the article, and may be worth adding if someone has a better source. Anaxial (talk) 07:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks--JTBX (talk) 20:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Predators

I wasn't aware that a hunting dog was a specific species let alone a wild predator, isn't it supposed to be the African Wild Dog? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.207.191 (talk) 13:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Elephant shrew/elephant?

I can't believe the elephant shrew is related to the elephant in any way whatsoever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.232.121.101 (talk) 10:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

North American aardvark/Abbeville, SC?

This is vandalism/a prank, isn't it? I'm not in the field, but it sure does look like bs to me. I can't quickly find any serious reference to "North American aardvarks," but what does pop up in first place (for what that's worth) is some site that claims there aren't any! Also, the conjunction of "aardvark" and "Abbeville" in the search box doesn't quickly find references to plentiful aardvark populations in the area. Finally, the English in the section reads like an 8th grader wrote it. I didn't spend much time verifying this, but it sure looks fishy to me. Maybe someone should take it out. Songflower (talk) 06:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Not to sound snippity, but, if something looks like vandalism, revert it. If it turned out to not be vandalism, someone else will come along and revert it back.--Mr Fink (talk) 17:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

the map

I was reading the same article in German and their aardvark range map is very different than the English version, so which one is more correct?--24.79.70.203 (talk) 23:17, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

According to the IUCN [1], the version on this page is correct. The presence of aardvarks in the Congo basin seems to be a relatively recent discovery, however, and I have seen older sources that use the same map as the German WP article.

Pronunciation

A v is definitely used in the animal's name normally, and the OED says the pronunciations are "Brit. /ˈɑːdvɑːk/ , U.S. /ˈɑrdˌvɑrk/ , S. Afr. /ˈɑːdfɑːk/". The pronunciations given, don't correspond: they use the American version for the first syllable and the South African for the second. It does look a little weird to put the scientific name in the same parentheses by the way, not sure what else could be done. —innotata 16:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

An aardvarks in popular culture section could include "Arthur: the world's most famous aardvark", "The Ant and the Aardvark" or the comic strip "Dr Sheep and the Aardvark". Tigerbob 11:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

No "Aardvarks in Popular Culture" section is complete without Cerebus the Aardvark. --87.78.98.243 (talk) 19:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Footnote 14 "Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission" is circular - the source is quoting this same article as the source. -- xonimmortal 199.188.193.9 (talk) 01:21, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Anatomy

I believe that there are multiple problems with the section on the anatomy of the aardvark's olfactory system. Most critically, the olfactory bulbs are part of the brain, not the nose. Olfactory epithelium contains receptors whose axons synapse with the olfactory bulbs, but the bulbs are not located in the epithelium. There is no such thing as the olfactory lobe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.76.129 (talk) 11:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

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Cerebus the comic book character?

Shouldn't there be a link in popular culture to the incredible comic book character Cerebus the Aardvark? Jrob kiwi (talk) 10:36, 5 March 2018 (UTC) Jrob

Semi-protected edit request on 25 October 2019

State UNAMBIG they eat chiken and poop.

 Not done: For obvious reasons. Anaxial (talk) 19:58, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

antbear

Word should appear on page somewhere? Drsruli (talk) 17:56, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It already does (first sentence under "name"). Anaxial (talk) 20:50, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

(Indeed. I had searched for antbear. Thank you.) Drsruli (talk) 17:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Comedy

Possibly spurious comment in the "comedy" part. It runs: "Surprisingly, Blackadder is historically correct in this regard. Doctor Johnson's Dictionary does not in fact contain the word aardvark. Or sausage."

Regarding aardvark, I don't believe the word was in use at the time of Johnson's writing of his dictionary (earliest OED2 quote is from 1833), and Johnson's Dictionary would seem to contain an entry for sausage, since the OED quotes (what I presume to be) Johnson's Dictionary in its sausage entry: "1755 JOHNSON Sausage, a roll or ball made commnonly of pork or veal [..]."

Johnson's entry for sausage also here

http://www.outlawcook.com/Page0123.html

Aardvark is the article though, so the main critique of "Johnson's Dictionary does not in fact contain the word aardvark" would be that the word was probably not in use at the time of the writing. Blackadder is comedy of course, not history, so this is not a major problem. Also, quotes earlier than those given in the OED are regularly found, so I can't be definite about "aardvark" not being around for Johnson to record in his Dictionary. A look at the history of "aardvark" in Dutch might clear this up. -- Exadversus 19:10, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Aardvark article:

  • Can link southern Asia: ... of the superorder [[Afrotheria]], and spread to Europe and southern Asia during the later Miocene and early [[Pliocene]]. Three gene...
  • Can link fall out: ...nal incisors and canines at the front of the jaw, but these fall out and are not replaced. In adult Aardvarks, the only teeth ar...
  • Can link sense of smell: ...trusible tongues and elaborate structures supporting a keen sense of smell....
  • Can link mating season: ...ws, but it will often remain with the mother until the next mating season....
  • Can link sub-Saharan Africa: ...xt mating season. Aardvarks are distributed across most of sub-Saharan Africa, and although killed by humans both for their flesh and for...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Verification Issue

I was checking the source for footnote 31 (about aardvarks swimming) because it seemed like it might be of dubious veracity (it was in doubt whether or not aardvarks drink water until 2017), and I discovered that the source (page 456 of Rahm 1990) does not contain anything about aardvarks -- the entire page is just a photograph of a gazelle. Searching the word "aardvark" reveals that there is no information about aardvarks in the entire book.

It seems that the reference cites vol. 4, which does has a section on aardvarks, but the link to the Internet Archive is for vol. 5, which does not contain any information on aardvarks. I haven't managed to find the 1990 vol. 4 yet, but the 2003 edition of vol. 4 does not contain any information about aardvarks swimming in its section about aardvarks. IdleCuriosity123 (talk) 03:24, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Environmental physiology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2022 and 5 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zofiax13 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Psmi119, Iuven.

— Assignment last updated by Jessicaphillips10 (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Classification

I have removed this - "but most are probably invalid" - from the bit about aardvark subspecies. What does it mean? As I understand it, subspecies are defined according to the whim of whoever is doing the classification at the time. If anyone knows of an objective criterion for classifying animals into subspecies, I would be interested to hear it... Oliver P. 21:53 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

It is indeed a difficult area, Oliver. But I am not in the habit of making this sort of thing up. There are plenty of references if you want me to cite them. Sing out if you do. Tannin
Oh, I wasn't accusing you of making it up. It's just that according to everything that I've read about classifications of animals (and that's not as much as you have, I'm sure), divisions into subspecies are arbitrary conventions. If I am wrong, please enlighten me. What does it mean for a classification to be "valid" or "invalid"? I understand that it is common to define a species as a group for which the individuals can interbreed with each other, but not with individuals outside the group (although this definition is problematic). But I've never heard such a definition for a subspecies, and I'm curious to know what one might be. -- Oliver P. 05:04 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Capital Letter And More Classification

And another thing - do we really need the capital letter on "Aardvark"? It's not as if we have to differentiate between the Brown Aardvark and the Lesser Spotted Aardvark, which I gather was the argument for bird species. If there is only one species of aardvark, then I don't see the need. -- Oliver P. 22:00 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Consistency and accuracy. Tannin
Consistency, yes, I understand why that is a good thing. But are you proposing changing "dog" to "Dog", and "cat" to "Cat" everywhere, too? If not, then we'll never have consistency, so that argument disappears. And as for accuracy, names are arbitrary labels; none is more "accurate" than any other. (Here we go again...) -- Oliver P. 05:04 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Well, technically, that is exactly what we should do: Canis familiaris IS correctly written as "Dog". Most of my textbooks do exactly this. I know that it's the way you are supposed to write it, but I confess to thinking it looks funny, and I doubt I'd write it that way myself most of the time.

"Dog" is something of a special case, though. Yes, it's a particular exact species in the strict "letter of the law", but for practical purposes we can almost regard dogs as a genus or family - in very few other creatures do we have so many well-recognised variations. In this sense, "dog" almost becomes a "quasi-family", a grouping of related creatures, if you like - which is normally written in lower case. At least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. :)

With "cat", it's easier. The species is properly written as Domestic Cat or House Cat, while just "cat" on its own can mean anything from a tuddy tabby asleep on the hearth to a Siberian Tiger.

Now, let's deal with your suggestion that as for accuracy, names are arbitrary labels; none is more "accurate" than any other. Do you have a source for this? In what context was it stated? (Rhetorical questions, largely in jest: do not trouble to answer them unless you feel like it!) It is most certainly not true within at least some of the fields to do with fauna and flora. For convenience of discussion I'll split them up into three or four categories:

  1. Scientific names: These are precise names with exact meanings, and well-established procedures to follow when a dispute or ambiguity arises. No two species ever have the same scientific name, except by accident (in which case the problem is swiftly corrected), and a single species never has two names, again except by accident, or where it is discovered that the original name is, for some reason or another, incorrect.
  2. Formal common names Much the same as scientific names. In general, these are equally unique and map on a 1 to 1 basis to scientific names. They are exact synonyms and (in general) no two are duplicated. The implementation of this varies from one area of specialty to another. In birds, it is near enough to 100% implemented on a worldwide basis (not without some pain along the way when the peak birding authorities in one or another region felt obliged to change a popular and well-known common name becaue it conflicted with that of another species in some far awy part of the world). In mammals it seems to be complete also, or almost complete. I know that the top American body responsible for fish is moving in the same direction, and assume that their counterparts in other regions are doing (or possibly already have done) the same. For plants, I'm not sure: most, possibly all, of the Australian species now comply with this, I don't know about other parts of the world.
  3. Informal common names: These ARE "arbitary labels", just as you said. Their utility varies: I can call the bird outside my window a "blue wren" and anyone living in Victoria or South Australia will know what I mean. But if I want everyone to know exactly which bird I mean, then I must call it a "Splendid Fairy-wren". If I lived 1500 miles or so further north, I'd still have a "blue wren" outside my window, but it would be a Varigated Fairy-wren, Malurus lamberti, not M. splendens. There are no rules with this class of name. If you and I and a few million others decide to call blue wrens "green fish" from now on, then green fish they are. But if we want to change the name of the Splendid Fairy-wren, then we must persuade the RAOU of the merits of our case and take it through the proper channels.

(The subspecies question is very interesting indeed and deserves a seperate consideration. I could write something off the top of my head, but I'll recheck my facts first, possibly write it up in subspecies. I'll come to that a little later on today.) Tannin

Thanks for the explanation, Mr. Tannin. That's all very interesting stuff. My point about names being "arbitrary labels" was that if my brother and I decide between ourselves that we're going to call aardvarks "sploogleblonks" from now on, then we'll be able to communicate to each other perfectly well about aardvarks using that name, without any ambiguity or confusion. Of course we wouldn't be able to use that word in communication with other people about aardvarks, unless they used the same convention, but we'd still be able to use it to each other, and it would make no difference. Of course, there are agreed conventions on what to call things, and this is highly useful for being able to discuss things with lots of other people without misunderstanding, and therefore a Good Thing, but the names used in these conventions are still arbitrary. There may indeed be different conventions in different groups; members of these groups would be able to commicate with each other perfectly well within the group, but not with people in a different group. The official bodies could have decided to call the aardvark the "Sploogleblonk", and I'm sure all the zoologists would have been quite content using that name in publications, and they'd all be able to communicate with each other perfectly well using that term. The general public would probably still call it the "aardvark", and they too would be able to communicate with each other perfectly well using that term. That's all I meant by the names being arbitrary. Of course we want to follow conventions in the Wikipedia, so that people understand what we're talking about. But if there is more than one convention, which one do we use? It seems that the official bodies call it the "Aardvark", while the general English-speaking public call it the "aardvark". Well, since this is a publication for the use of the general English-speaking public, I think we should use whatever is the most common convention among the English-speaking public. (Assuming that it wouldn't lead to any ambiguity. In this case it wouldn't, because there is only one species of aardvark.) So that's... "aardvark", right? :)
Oh yes, and I've added the subspecies article to my watchlist, so I can see how it goes. -- Oliver P. 01:08 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Another Classification Subject

I don't think that subspecies are completely arbitary. In many species, there are clearly defined populations which can be distinguished on a consistent and reliable basis. An obvious example is the populations of Yellow Wagtail which have different coloured heads (yellow in the UK, blue in western Europe grey in Scandinavia etc). The problem only arises when the differences are clinal, with no sharp demarcations, or through over-zealous application. The last was particularly prevalent in the Victorian era, when almost every bird species had a British race. jimfbleak 06:36 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

(later) A possibly better example is Pied Wagtail and White Wagtail. The British (and adjacent coastal France) subspecies is Pied, whereas most of mainland Europe is White. Each shows no variation within its own range, and is always distinguishable from the other form. Although they can intrbreed, they rarly do so because of the partial reproductive isolation. There is nothing arbitary here. There are exactly two subspecies of Motacilla alba in western Europe. jimfbleak 16:11 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation. That is indeed interesting. I don't suppose you know about aardvarks as well, do you? I suppose that to say that a classification of the aadvark into 18 subspecies was "invalid" would mean that some of the 18 groups were not, in fact, distinguishable, even though the proponents of the classification thought they were. Sounds odd to me, but I think I'm a little out of my depth here, so I'll bow out of this one... -- Oliver P. 01:08 May 12, 2003 (UTC)
You have the gist of it, Oliver. I'm working on a much-too-ambitious project to re-write subspecies, species, family, and probably order at present. I'll pop a note on your talk page if/when I make some substantial progress on it. Tannin 01:14 May 12, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. I look forward to reading it. -- Oliver P. 02:20 May 12, 2003 (UTC)
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