Orycteropus afer leptodon

Orycteropus afer leptodon is a very large forest aardvark of Cameroon, with small, narrow teeth.^[1]

Names and classification

Hirst named it Orycteropus leptodon in 1906, as a species, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (series 7, vol. 17, pp. 383–384).^[1][2] The type, collected by G. L. Bates at Efulen, Cameroon, is an incomplete skull in the British Museum.^[1][3] The original does not explain the name.^[1] Lydekker made it a subspecies of afer in 1908.^[3][4]

The Mammal Diversity Database treats this name as a synonym of the single species, Orycteropus afer.^[3] 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.^[5]

Description

Hirst described it from an incomplete skull from Efulen, Cameroon, now in the British Museum (BM 1905.11.27.20). The teeth are small and very narrow, and the ears are short, about 11.5 cm.^[1] Grote later named a second Cameroon form, adametzi, and compared its skull with this one.^[6]

Range

It is a forest form, given as living in Cameroon.^[5][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.^[7] Treat this name as a historical description, not as a settled form. See the full list of names.

Sources

1. Hirst 1906, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 7, vol. 17
2. Allen 1939, “A checklist of African mammals”, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 83
3. Mammal Diversity Database, Orycteropus afer
4. Lydekker 1908, The Game Animals of Africa
5. Taylor 2011, Order Tubulidentata, in Handbook of the Mammals of the World, vol. 2
6. Grote 1921, “Neue Erdferkel (Orycteropus) aus Deutsch-Ostafrika und Kamerun”, Archiv für Naturgeschichte 87A
7. California Academy of Sciences, Afrotheria research page: Tubulidentata (secondary)