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Meerkat Gifts

The meerkat or suricate Suricata suricatta, a small mammal, is a member of the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some superfamilies have 50 or more members. Meerkats have an average life span of 12-14 years.


Meerkats

Meerkats are small mammals in the mongoose family.

Meerkat Classification:

Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Herpestidae
Genus: Suricata
Species: Suricatta

Other Names: Suricates,

Meerkat in Foreign Languages:

Afrikaans:
meerkat
Arabic: suriqaat / mirkaat
Chinese Mandarin: húmeng
Czech: surikata
Dutch: stokstaartje
Esperanto: surikato
Finnish: nelisormimangusti
French: suricate
German: Erdmännchen
Hungarian: szurikáta
Italian: suricato
Japanese: miakyatto
Navajo: dlo´t'a´'í
Portuguese: suricate
Russian: surikát / (surikáta / mirkát
Spanish: suricata / suricato


Meerkat

Conservation Status:

Size: Meerkats are approximately 12 inches long and weigh approximately 22 lbs. Female meerkats are slightly larger than their male counterparts.

Habitat: Meerkats are found in Southern Africa.

Description: Meerkats have long and slender bodies with long black-tipped tails. Meerkats have long, sharp claws on their front paws, that hey use for burrowing. Meerkats have long pronounced and pointy muzzles.

Behavior: Meerkats build complex burrows with that will on average have 15 entrance and exit holes. The burrow will have elaborate tunnels and chambers at several levels, some as deep as 6.5 feet deep.

Diet: Meerkats eat lizards, snakes, scorpions, spiders, plants, eggs, small mammals, millipedes, centipedes and, ocassionally small birds.

Communication: Meerkats have scent glands to mark their territory by leaving their scents on rocks and plants.

Did You Know?

Unlike many other animals meerkats can kill and eat venomous snakes and scorpions without being harmed by the poison. Meerkats are immune to the toxic venoms.

Gestation: Meerkats carry their young for approximately 11 weeks.

Birth: Meerkats give birth to litters of 1 - 6 babies. Meerkats weigh 1.2 ounces at birth.

Sexually Mature: Meerkats sexually mature around 1.5 years of age.

Life Span: The average life span of the meerkat is 10 years in the wild. Hawks, jackals and snakes prey on meerkats.

Did You Know?

There are 3 species of meerkats.

Social Structure: Meerkats live in large organized social groups of approximately 30 members, called a gang or a mob. The mob consists of several family gorups, and has a single dominant male and female who produce most of the group's offspring. Meerkats in the mob will work togther to rear and protect the young.

Meerkat Gifts

 

 

 
 
 
 
 


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