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Habits and Adaptations: A group of meerkats is called a “gang” or a “mob”, and can number up to 40 individuals. An average meerkat gang consists of an alpha pair, several breeding age adults of both sexes, and offspring from previous litters. Meerkats are diurnal, only active during the day, spending most of the day foraging for food. At night they retire to their underground burrows, which consist of entrance holes, tunnels, sleeping chambers, and even a common bathroom. They inhabit large territories, 500 - 2500 acres, with 6 - 15 different burrows and up to 70 entrance holes. They will often take advantage of burrows dug by other animals, but are equipped with long, curved claws on their front feet that are designed for digging. Sometimes they even share their burrows with ground squirrels and yellow mongoose.
Other adaptations for digging are their nictitating membrane, which helps clear sand and other debris from the eyes, and closable ears to keep sand out while digging. The group will typically only spend a few days or so at a particular burrow. This allows the burrow time to regenerate and helps replenish the food supply in that area. The “sentinel” keeps watch over the gang while they go about their daily activities. Usually every member of the group will take a turn as sentinel. The higher ranking the individual the less time they have to spend on duty. The sentinel will find a good vantage point and scan the horizon for any sign of danger.
The combination of their keen eyesight and the dark bands around their eyes helps ensure that they won’t miss a thing, even while looking directly at the sun. An adaptation that comes in handy on the cooler days is a dark patch of skin on their stomachs that helps absorb the suns rays. Their main predators include; Jackals, Martial Eagles and other birds of prey, Yellow Cobras, Cape Fox, and Honey Badgers. Meerkats have a variety of different vocalizations; about 25 have been recorded and analyzed, ranging from barks, growls, and even a soft murmuring while foraging for food.
Diet: Having a remarkably low metabolic rate for an animal their size, they require less water and food. In fact, they get most of the water they need from the food they eat. Meerkats are primarily insectivorous, mainly beetles and larvae which make up about 75% of their diet. Using their acute sense of smell, they sift through the sand searching for food. Being opportunistic feeders, they will eat almost anything they can overpower including; scorpions, millipedes, lizards, snakes, small birds and mammals, eggs, and some vegetation (roots and tubers). Their diet at the zoo consists of Science Diet Feline Maintenance dry, produce (apples, carrots, bananas, and grapes), chopped mice, hard boiled eggs and bones once a week, and bugs throughout the day (crickets, mealworms and super worms).
Breeding and Maturation Breeding occurs during the warm, rainy months with the majority of litters born between January and March (in captivity they are capable of breeding year round). The alpha pair does most of the breeding in the gang. Depending on the amount of rainfall and availability of food, a single female can produce up to 3 litters in a season, although 1 or 2 litters is more common. After an 11-week gestation, 2 - 5 kits/pups are born sparsely furred, with their eyes and ears closed. “Baby-sitters” as well as “wet nurses” help care for the young so the mother can spend more time foraging for food in order to produce enough milk. At about 10 days old, the kits/pups open their eyes and ears. At 23 - 30 days, they are eating solid food and are starting to venture out of the burrow. By 49 - 63 days, they have been weaned and can practically take care of themselves. An individual’s rank in the group can either be inherited or fought for.
They reach sexual maturity at about 1 year old and will sometimes migrate to other gangs. Quite often an individual may remain in the same group for its entire life, which is typically 10 years in the wild and 12 years in captivity.
Miscellaneous: There are approximately 36 species of mongoose, 8 being social. The first mongooses probably originated in Eurasia about 50 million years ago, and migrated to Africa during the early Miocene, 20 to 30 million years later.
Although not completely immune to snake or scorpion venom, they do seem to have an incredible resistance to it. They are reputed to be able to tolerate six times the cobra venom dose that would kill a rabbit. Meerkats have often been called the heroes of the animal world, going to great lengths to rescue a member in danger. When a member gets injured or becomes ill, the rest of the gang will center their activities on that individual. They spend their time comforting it and will bring it food to help it recover. Meerkats also spend a lot of time harassing some of their less threatening predators such as Yellow Cobras, Goshawks, and Cape Fox. It appears to be an attempt to banish certain predators from their territory, or at least make them think twice before confronting another meerkat.
They do not make good pets: they constantly dig, cannot be housebroken, scent mark everywhere, do not get along with other pets, can be territorial and aggressive in defense of territory, and they bite! Not to mention you need federal permits to own them as they are considered an “injurious species” in the USA.
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