African Civet

Today we are learning about the next animal in our list. The African civets are found all around the coast across sub-Saharan Africa; they are normally nocturnal and spend the day sleeping and the night hunting.  African civets eat almost anything from poisonous millipedes, to eggs.  They eat vegetables, snakes, and small vertebrates, such as small frogs.  African civets, (like all civets) have perineal glands that produce a fluid known as civetone; that is where they get their name African Civet.  African civet’s live around fifteen to twenty good long years.  When they mate it is accurse in the warm and wet summer months from august to January. The reason for this time in the summer is because of the population of insects.  Females create the nest which is normally in a whole or dug bye another animal.  Females are polyestrous and can have up to three litters per year.  Female African civets normally give birth to on or four young.  Their name, African civet is from the French civette and the Greek ictus, which mainly means weasel which they resemble a lot.  African Civets are mammals, and are easy to recognize bye their unique coloring, they have mainly black coats, white stripes, and blotches covering the coarse pelage of the animals.  This allows it to be cryptic.  The black bands surrounding the African civet's eyes closely resembles to the specie of a raccoon.  The closes in size of this African civet is the extant viverrid family.  While females are sometimes credited as slightly larger, there are no great differences in height between the two sexes.  Their unique tail is as long as half of their body; African civets are the largest African Viverridae.  Like all mammals the African civet has two layers of fur, the top layer protecting the African civet and the bottom one for warmth.  You might think since they live in Africa that they do not need a second layer but since they are nocturnal they come put when it is cold to hunt.  African civets have long, curved like nails, which helps them hunt.  Their feet are compact and are mostly used to dig and hunt.  Their feet are hairless which is a good thing saying i hair would just get in the way from digging.  I hope you liked what I written! Please subscribe and follow me. Almost every day I will post a random fact.  Please comment if you did not like something I wrote or have a question! Also check out all the other things I wrote.