Brush-Tailed Aardvark

A Brush-Tailed Aardvark (Nothrorycteropus aferensis) is a species of aardvark found throughout Africa, even areas where the common aardvarks (Orycteropus afer) aren't known to live in such as Morocco. It is named for its giant anteater-like tail, which is a result of convergent evolution, and it uses to brush away soft soil and sand when digging through insect hills for its main food sources, ants and termites. Its meat is toxic for almost all predators (even humans) and can kill almost every predators that eat their flesh, due to the brush-tailed aardvark having poisonous ants as one of its food sources, except crocodiles, which are immune to the brush-tailed aardvark's poisonous flesh. The conservation status of the brush-tailed aarvark is Vulnerable due to habitat loss and pet trade, but conservationists are trying to save this species from extinction and they are very easy to breed in captivity. The appearance of this aardvark species may have been an inspiration for the fictional aardvarks from 20th Century Fox's Ice Age franchise.