Orycteropus afer albicaudus is a deep brown aardvark with a white tail, described from one very old animal from German South-West Africa (now Namibia).[1]
Names and classification
Rothschild named it as a subspecies, Orycteropus afer albicaudus, in 1907 (Novitates Zoologicae 14, p. 506).[1][2] The type was a very old animal from German South-West Africa, now Namibia, and the original does not explain the name.[1] Lydekker called it the Damara race.[3]
The Mammal Diversity Database treats this name as a synonym of the single species, Orycteropus afer.[2] Taylor’s 2011 account lists it among 18 named subspecies, but says that neither their validity nor the limits of their ranges are properly known.[4]
Description
Rothschild described a uniform deep brown body, a very short pure white tail and a greyish-brown head. He first said it had five teeth on each side, but Lydekker soon called tooth number an unimportant character, since it ranges from five to six above and four to six below in every race.[1][3] The name is missing from the 2005 list of 17 subspecies.[5]
Range
Taylor gives its range as Angola, western Zambia, Namibia and Botswana.[4] The type animal came from German South-West Africa.[1]
Status
Eighteen subspecies have been named, but that number is almost certainly too high, and because so little material exists, neither the status nor the limits of range of the subspecies are known.[5] Treat this name as a historical description, not as a settled form. See the full list of names.