A baby aardvark born April 10 made his public debut April 29 at the Jambo Junction in Busch Gardens. Photo provided by Busch Gardens.

On April 10th, a male baby aardvark was born at Busch Gardens, Tampa.  Visitors can sneak a peak at the new cub at Jambo Junction, located in the Nairobi section of the park.

In the wild, aardvarks are solitary and quite elusive.  But their range spans all of Africa south of the Sahara, and they are listed a species of least concern of becoming endangered by the IUCN Redlist.  They eat ants and termites.

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Watch Hoover, an inquisitive baby aardvark, at the Bronx Zoo exploring his environment.

In the wild, aardvarks are native to Africa. They have specialized features that help them hunt for their main diet: termites. They have thick claws useful for digging through termite mounds, long snouts that can suck up the termites, and a long sticky tongue that can slop them up.

For more information about Hoover and the aardvark exhibit, see the Bronx Zoo website.

Weighing in at 3 pounds, 10 ounces, this hairless, baby aardvark arrived into the world on December 8 at the Detroit Zoo.  Described as “hideously cute,” the newborn was named Amani, which is Swahili for “peace.”

Aardvarks live in Africa and use long sticky tongues to lap up insects.

For more information on Amani, see Free Press’s “Detroit Zoo welcomes newborn aardvark.”