Meerkat

Joseph Cauich

2 Period

Meerkat

Habitat

• Most of them live in Southern Africa in the semiarid plains

• Prefers to live in scrublands.

Food• Meerkats like to eat…..• Insects • Spiders• Snails• Small rodents• Lizards• Bird eggs• The are also immune to scorpion and snake venom so

they are able to eat them as well.

Offspring

•Gestation is about 75 days•Sexual maturity is at the age of 12 months

•Mating is year around•Number of young per pregnancy is 2-4

predators

•martial eagles

•Jackels

•Servals

•Snakes will also go After the youth of meerkats.

lifestyle

meerkats have certain duties they must follow. They live in colonies up to 30 but usually 24 Therefore they live in complex society. They are very social within each other and use this as in advantage. They communicate incase of any danger and all try to leave as a group rather then just splitting up and heading different directions.

They have many duties. For example, there are babysitters who guard the youth while the other go off to search for food. Another duty is being the look out in case a predator where to head there way. They are called the sentry. They also have teachers who teach the meerkats how to hunt. Another positions are the hunters. they dig or search for food for mostly the youths.

Human Interaction

Animal planet runs a show called, meerkat manor, its about meerkats and their lifestyle. While filming, the

meerkats do not runaway from the people filming. They sense no threat and are oblivious to the camera men.

Relatives

The meerkats are mostly related to the mongoose. They are said to be a different form of a mongoose since they have different features.

Sources

• http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/000/cache/baobab-mali_78_600x450.jpg

• National geographic.com

• Google images

• http://homepage.mac.com/rstacy/images/pages/meerkats/meerkat_06-4814.html

• Animal planet.com

• Meerkat manor http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/meerkat/photos/meerkat-pictures-14.html

• Yahoo images.