Bat-Eared Fox

Up to nine tenths of the diet is harvester termites, and the skull has been reorganised around them: as many as fifty teeth, more than any other placental land mammal, with sharp cusps for crushing chitin and a jaw carrying a specialised muscle for very rapid chewing. The ears work as parabolic dishes, picking up larvae moving beneath dung and soil.

Because their food is insects rather than lambs, they are largely spared the persecution aimed at other African carnivores, and because termite harvesters flourish on grazed ground, cattle country suits them. Pairs are unusually devoted, and it is the male that does most of the pup-guarding while the female feeds — a reversal that follows directly from a diet requiring hours of continuous foraging.