On the 20th April a male aardvark named Afer arrived at Colchester Zoo from Belgium! It is hoped that Afer will become our new breeding male and live with our existing two females OQ and Puq.
Afer joined us just a day after our last offspring, young male, Adela Junior (AJ), left Colchester Zoo to join two females at Africa Alive to begin his very own family. AJ was our last offspring of the late Adela who fathered 9 offspring after successfully breeding with Puq and OQ. It is hoped that Afer will follow in Adela’s footsteps and create a special relationship with our resident females in the hope that we return to having a successful breeding programme for this extraordinary species.
The aardvark is a unique animal only found in Africa and are almost exclusively nocturnal, they love to sleep during the day curled in a tight circle in the burrow. Aardvarks such as our group have thick skin which is sparsely covered by hairs and varies in colour from brownish grey to a pale sandy colour with offspring only taking around 12 months to go to a full size adult.
Our group enjoy a diet mainly made up of insects such as ants and termites. Once fully grown an adult aardvark can eat up to 50,000 of this insect prey in one night!
Meet our aardvark trio with our exclusive keeper shadow experience!