Meet Nature's Most Adorable, Best Kept Secret: The Aardwolf

These cute creatures live in the scrublands of Southern and Eastern Africa. Aardwolves typically grow to be about the size of a fox, and they have distinctive black stripes around their chest and on their legs. They also have tufts of fur on their back that stand up like a mohawk. They’re related to hyenas, but unlike their carnivorous cousins, aardwolves prefer to get their food from below the ground.

For the first six to eight weeks of their life, the baby aardwolves stay in the den with their mom. When they're about three months old, they'll begin foraging under the supervision of their parents. When they're four months old, they're considered independent, but they'll typically stay in the den with their parents until the next breeding season. Then, they'll go off on their own, and they usually won't return to their old den.