[Crested Newt]

Has anyone here ever ahd an experience with Meerkats? Here are some pictures taken by me.

[goosey]

I love Meerkats they are so funny to watch – not that I have seen them in the wild -only in animal parks.
They actually live in gangs of about 30 in the Kalahari Desert, where temperatures soar in the day and plummet at night. At dawn they stand or sit in the sun to warm up, the dark skin on their stomachs absorbs the heat. Shelter is hard to come by in the desert so have 6 -10 burrows in their territory (up to 15 sq km). They protect their territory and burrows from other mobs fiercely. They have a breeding burrow where pups are born and raised for their first three weeks until their mothers go to hunt, then they are taken outside to be cared for by a “baby sitter“ female.
One always stands as a sentry while others hunt , if there is danger from predators such as hawks and Jackals it will bark or gives sharp growls as a warning and dives for cover. They eat insects, fruit, worms, birds eggs, mice and plant roots – they are particularly fond of larvae. They have been known to eat scorpions and are thought to be immune from their deadly venom. Search for food to survive is so important as they lose 5% of their body weight over night.
I don’t expect they are as cute as they seem, with those sharp teeth and claws but I can stand and watch them for hours.

[black]

I met a meerkat who was quite a character when I was in Namibia in 2007. He was injured a couple of years ago when a tourist went and kicked him for some unknown reason. The guide on my trip took him to the community lodge at Brandberg where I stayed for the night. They nursed him, called him Carlos and he decided to stay. He goes out roaming during the day to feed, apparently he really likes those large black millipedes. In the evenings he returns to the lodge and is fussed over by the visitors. He was curled up on one old dears lap and made some really distressed noises and grunts when she attempted to stand up to go into dinner - he just wanted more attention. In the morning he posed wonderfully stood on his hindlegs in the early sunlight.

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[wild worlds]

The name meerkat is Afrikaans, it translates to “water cat” more or less. How a desert dweling animal gets to be called a water cat is any ones guess. They are quite closely related to the mongoose. Not only do they seem to have a limited immunity to venom from scorpions and snakes, but they also can eat, as Black says, those big black millipedes (known locally as shongololo) that seem to make other animals, especially my dog, sick when they eat them. They range mainly from central / eastern Namibia down south to the Kalahari and Karoo. WW