Let’s take a moment to appreciate how fortunate we are to live in a country where a high-speed chase between a brown hyena and an aardvark is a possibility.

Rare as sightings of either may be, it’s even rarer to see these species interacting, so guests at the Greater Mabula Private Game Reserve in Limpopo can count themselves rather fortunate.

According to Latest Sightings, the footage was captured by Etienne, who works for the reserve, on an open plain known as the TPA plains.

Guests usually stop in the area for a champagne brekkie (you’re on holiday, it must be done), but that was put on hold while a chase unfolded.

Etienne described the sighting:

“At first, we thought that the brown hyena had spotted something else that it had begun to chase—perhaps an antelope or smaller animal like a scrub hare that we couldn’t see—it was only once the aardvark began running that we realized that the brown hyena was actually targeting the aardvark!”

Props to the aardvark for showing a remarkable turn of speed. If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to see one, you’ll understand my surprise:

I’ll assume you didn’t watch through to the end and get back to Etienne’s account:

“We had never imagined that an aardvark was able to run so quickly and to see it escape into its burrow was a moment of absolute awe. After the rush of adrenaline of the brown hyena nearly managing to get a grip on the aardvark a couple of times, it was simply breath-taking to watch the aardvark manage to escape into one of its burrows that the brown hyena could not access despite its initial efforts.”

Despite the fact that the brown hyena was chased off by a herd of wildebeest, the aardvark exercised caution, and did not reemerge from its burrow.

Shrewd move, aardvark.

You can read Etienne’s full story here.

[source:latestsightings]