Long, soft coat grizzled gray or tan with buff to yellowish underparts. Head is almost white. Black eye patches, ears, feet, and tail tip and dark transverse banding on back. Anal scent glands are present.
Females have six mammae.
Dry open country in southwestern Angola, Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. Insectivorous diggers, concentrating on beetle larvae, pupae and larvae of moths, butterflies, and flies, and termites, crickets, spiders, scorpions, and other invertebrates that are buried or hidden. Occasionally they eat lizards, small snakes, birds, eggs, and mice. In waterless areas they may obtain water by chewing tsama melons and digging up roots and tubers. Diurnal, highly gregarious, territorial.