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AnAge entry for Orycteropus afer

Classification (HAGRID: 03565)
TaxonomyKingdom: Animalia
    Phylum: Chordata
        Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
            Order: Tubulidentata
                Family: Orycteropodidae
                    Genus: Orycteropus
SpeciesOrycteropus afer
Common nameAardvark

Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits

Maximum longevity29.8 years (captivity)
Sourceref. 671
Sample sizemedium
Data qualityacceptable
Observations

One captive specimen lived for 29.8 years [0671].

Life history traits (averages)

Female sexual maturity730 days
Male sexual maturity730 days
Gestation225 days
Weaning103 days
Litter size1 (viviparous)
Litters per year1
Inter-litter interval365 days
Weight at birth1,800 g
Weight at weaning6,250 g
Adult weight60,000 g
Postnatal growth rate0.0094 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
Maximum longevity residual113 %

Metabolism

Typical body temperature308ºK or 34.5ºC or 94.1ºF
Basal metabolic rate34.2750 W
Body mass48000.0 g
Metabolic rate per body mass0.000714 W/g

References
[0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
[0036] Savage et al. (2004), The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology
[0420] White and Seymour (2003), Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3, PubMed
[0610] Ernest (2003), Life history characteristics of placental non-volant mammals
[0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
[0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
[0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves

External resources

Integrated Taxonomic Information SystemITIS 584927
Animal Diversity WebADW account
Encyclopedia of LifeSearch EOL
Genome ProjectSearch NCBI
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