Under what paradigm would a few dozen species be required to link an
aardvark to any other afrothere? (Assuming it's an afrothere.) For one
thing, primitive hyracoids and aardvarks all look similar; go up to
tethytheres, and you get short-legged, tailed, stubby animals with long
bodies, and internal genitalia for males, something all afrotheres share.
Terrestrial desmostylians and sirenians, as well as primitive elephants
are very, very, very similar to one another. These features all show that
the well-spring from which afrotheres sprung was a smallish, aardvark-like
toothy terrestrial animal, most probably Gondwanan, with a large head,
hooves, well-muscles tail, and stocky torso/trunk.