User PJM The Meerkat– if any types of animal had a right to be a little irritated by the name we have talented them, this is one. Obviously, they are blithely uninformed of any names we might pick to call them, but this little mammal from the heart of Africa is anything but a mere feline.
.
There are lots of intriguing realities about meerkats but to start with it has actually to be pointed out that the meerkat is not any kind of feline, although you might be forgiven for thinking it was some sort of distant relative. The word comes from Afrikaans (via Dutch) and the animal was given the name because of a misidentification. ‘Kat’ is certainly Dutch for cat and the word ‘meer’ indicates lake. Misidentification is possibly an understatement here. As we have currently established the meerkat is no cat– and moreover it is not attracted to lakes in any method, shape or form. That doesn’t mean to state, obviously, that the odd mud health club is not welcome.
.
name. It has been recommended that when meerkats were very first encountered by the Dutch East India Company there may well have been an Indian sailor on board the ship. Possibly the Sanskrit word for monkey– markata– is where the meerkat got its name. Simply to complicate matters, there is an alternative name for the types– the Suricate. This is from the Dutch’ stockstaartje’ which suggests ‘little stick tail’. Completely a more suitable name but one which is largely confined to Afrikaans speakers. Image Credit Flickr User Coda Image Credit Flickr User left-hand Image Credit Flickr User rofanator Europeans– definitely
types topped the mainland of Africa and southern Eurasia. And– sigh– no, there is no connection whatsoever to geese! The word mongoose originates from an Indian language called Marathi and their word’ mangus ‘is pronounced in the exact same way we spell it. The meerkat is a diurnal species– and what that suggests is that it is active in the day time and sleeps at night– the reverse would of course be nocturnal. It isn’t an extremely heavy animal. The males are much heavier at about 730 grams and the females normally weigh around 10 grams less. Image Credit Flickr User Angus Kirk Image Credit Flickr User Auntie Owee Image Credit Flickr User RayMorris1 It is, however, a long and slender
appears that they are really slim and slender. In truth they have no excess fat stores and so need to forage for food each and every single day. Even when they look fat, like this chap listed below, it is simply the method he is sitting– truthfully. Image Credit Flickr User dbarronnoss Image Credit Flickr User cokee Image Credit Flickr User prohibited snowflake They do this in a group– safety after all can be discovered in numbers. While the remainder of the group forage about there is always one sentry on guard,
keeping an eye out for other animals with the exact same thing on their minds– food! This duty is generally for just around an hour so the sentry does not get left out of the hunt for bugs. The sentry lets the others
As
to catch the moment. This miffs the a little older however not yet adult meerkats a few of which then continue to show off as much as they potentially can in order to restore the focus of attention. There is no denying the cute element. Image Credit Flickr User rofanator Image Credit Flickr User rofanator Not all meerkats in a clan are permitted to mate. There is in meerkat society an alpha set. These are the dominant male and woman and they absolutely retain the right to mate and produce young. Any women found to be pregnant might be
meerkats in a group will be connected to the alpha pair in some method shape or type but occasionally adoptions of roaming pups have been known to take place. Image Credit Flickr User gakige Image Credit Flickr User rogersmithpix Image Credit Flickr User noiseburst Their very social behaviour– along with looks on TELEVISION adverts( albeit
in