Kvída the Aardvark

Origin

Kvída was born in Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands on February 1, 2005 and arrived in Prague Zoo at the end of May 2006. Her official name is Quote, but her keepers renamed her. Her weight stays around 48 kilograms, so bulkwise she is the middle one of our three aardvarks. But you can tell her apart mainly by the dark spot on the right side of her chest (at least if you don’t mistake it for a mud stain).

Temperament

Aardvarks look like creatures from another planet – no wonder scientists racked their brains for a long time trying to classify them. Nocturnal in their habits, they sleep through most of the day. That is why you will most often find them slumbering in their “bedroom” by the glass pane, cuddled up to one another. But, appearances notwithstanding, they are actually exceedingly bright and active animals. Kvída is no exception and often surprises us with her playfulness and invention. Her sensitive snout is always at work investigating something; her donkey-like ears lap up the slightest rustle; and her petite sharp hooves strive hard to rake open even the smallest crevice.
Aardvarks are food specialists, feeding mainly on termites and ants in the wild. They can pick them out of the narrowest of crevices with their long, sticky tongue. And true to her nature, Kvída does not hide her enthusiasm for this kind of food. Hardly anything will rouse her from her deep slumbers – except when she sniffs the air and realizes that someone is offering her a handful of her favorite worms. That she is unable to resist. In Prague Zoo she is fed a varied diet consisting mainly of minced meat, milk, honey and mealworms.

Breeding

It is a rare treat to see aardvarks in a zoo, and it is even rarer for a zoo to successfully breed them. So it should come as no surprise that we are duly proud of having already reared three young aardvarks. We have had aardvarks in Prague Zoo since 1979, our first baby aardvark having been born in 1988. In 2001, we built a separate exhibit for aardvarks in the African House.
This exhibit is home to Kvída, our aardvark female, and, since 2009, also to a male named Draco, born in England’s Colchester Zoo on January 14, 2009. It was with Draco that Kvída had her first-ever offspring in 2013. Unfortunately, both this baby aardvark and its younger sibling, who arrived a year later, were born with congenital defects and never really had a chance of surviving, no matter how good the care they received was. Nevertheless, Kvída showed herself to be a great mom. We are hoping we will get to see her give birth to a healthy offspring and raise it to independence.