Kiyo and Misha the aardvarks- email update Kiyo and Misha have been enjoying the recent lovely weather at ZSL London Zoo.
This might come as a surprise since aardvarks are nocturnal creatures, but for the past few months they have been waking up specially during the daytime for their 3 daily feeds. The keepers used to feed Kiyo and Misha their beloved Termant paste meal during the night time. Termant paste was introduced into their diet this year, (our giant anteaters eat it too!) and as a result Kiyo and Misha have become much more active. Not only does it taste great, it also has all the nutrients and vitamins they require. They also get treated to their favourite snacks of crickets and mealworms, which keepers make sure they get plenty of! Animal food fights! Feeding the Termant paste should have been straightforward since the group of meerkats that share their home as fast asleep at night. However, during the monthly animal weigh ins, the keepers noticed that Kiyo and Misha were losing a bit of weight and the meerkats were mysteriously getting larger! After a bit of late night sleuthing, they realised the cheeky meerkats were waking up each night after the aardvarks food was put down, and would try and to steal it! To stop this from happening, the meerkats are now fed inside during the daytime, and once they have rushed inside for food, the keepers put the Termant paste out for Kiyo and Misha. To begin with, they would leave the paste out for an hour, 3 times a day. The keepers then started to slowly reduce the time the food was left out, and now they wake up at 11am, 2pm and 4.15pm on the dot for their meals.  These are great times to see these lovely creatures in action, rather than cuddled up asleep!
Just in case you wondered what an aardvark weighs, at their May check up Kiyo weighed 53kg and Misha 46.5kg. The keepers are pretty sure they have now stopped growing, but they may still surprise us! Visit Kiyo and Misha If you haven’t had a chance to visit Kiyo and Misha yet don't forget to head on down to ZSL London Zoo soon. Thank you for adopting Kiyo and Misha and supporting ZSL's conservation projects
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