The aardvark is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. It is sometimes colloquially called "African antbear", "anteater", or the "Cape anteater" after the Cape of Good Hope. The name comes from earlier Afrikaans (erdvark) and means "earth pig" or "ground pig" (aarde earth/ground, vark pig), because of its burrowing habits (similar origin to the name groundhog).
The name Orycteropus means burrowing foot, and the name afer refers to Africa. The name of the aardvarks's order, Tubulidentata comes from the tubule style teeth. The aardvark is vaguely pig-like in appearance. Its body is stout with a prominently arched back and is sparsely covered with coarse hairs. The limbs are of moderate length, with the rear legs being longer than the forelegs. The front feet have lost the pollex (or 'thumb'), resulting in four toes, while the rear feet have all five toes.
Each toe bears a large, robust nail which is somewhat flattened and shovel-like, and appears to be intermediate between a claw and a hoof. Whereas the aardvark is considered digitigrade, it appears at time to be plantigrade. This confusion happens because when it squats it stands on its soles. The aardvark's stomach has a muscular pyloric area that acts as a gizzard, (it grinds the food up) to make chewing not important. Its cecum is large.
Both males and females emit a strong smelling secretion from an anal gland. Its salivary glands are highly developed and almost completely ring the neck, and their output is what causes the tongue to maintain its tackiness. The female has two pairs of teats in the inguinal region. Aardvarks live in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is suitable habitat for them to live, such as savannas, grasslands, woodlands and bushland, and available food (i.e., ants and termites).
They hide in dark underground burrows to avoid the warm weather. The only major habitat that they are not present in is swamp forest, as the high water table interferes with digging. They have been documented as high as 3,200 metres (10,500 ft) in Ethiopia. They are known to live throughout sub-Saharan Africa all the way to South Africa with few exceptions. These exceptions are coastal areas of Namibia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. They are also not present in Madagascar. They avoid rocky terrain as it causes problems with digging.