meerkat

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meerkat
Warning calls? / I


Audio file / audio sample Warning calls ? / i

Systematics
Superordinate : Laurasiatheria
Order : Predators (Carnivora)
Subordination : Feline (Feliformia)
Family : Mongooses (Herpestidae)
Genre : Suricata
Type : meerkat
Scientific name of the  genus
Suricata
Desmarest , 1804
Scientific name of the  species
Suricata suricatta
( Schreber , 1776)

The meerkat ( Suricata suricatta ), also called Surikate or obsolete Scharrtier , is a species of mammal from the mongoose family (Herpestidae). With an average of 700 to 750 g it is one of the smallest species of mongoose, it has a light gray fur with inconspicuous horizontal stripes. Meerkats live in arid regions in southern Africa . They live in groups of four to nine animals with distinctive social behavior and feed primarily on insects. They are not endangered species.

features

Skull ( Museum Wiesbaden Collection )
Distribution area
Meerkats in a zoo: playing, foraging (digging) and sighting (keeping watch)
Barking warning calls from a meerkat (birds chirping in the background)
Meerkat in the western Kalahari near Keetmanshoop
Meerkat in the Kalahari sand desert
Habitat in the Karoo semi-desert, three meerkats keep watch
Meerkats in the middle of openings in corridors to the earthworks they dug (here at the San Diego Zoo in California, USA)

Meerkats are the smallest mongooses after the dwarf mongooses . They reach a head body length of 24.5 to 29 cm, the tail measures 19 to 24 cm. They weigh between 620 and 970 g, with an average of 731 g males are slightly heavier than females, which reach an average of 720 g. They are slim and elongated and their legs are short. The strong front legs end in four toes, which are provided with sharp and around 15 mm long claws. The hind paws also have four toes, but the claws are significantly shorter at 8 mm.

The fur is soft and close to the body, its color varies from light brown to gray-brown, the only sparsely hairy underside is lighter. The animals in the south of the distribution area are generally darker than the animals in the north. Dark, sometimes faded horizontal stripes run down the back. The eyes are surrounded by dark spots and the ears are black. The length of the outer hairs on the shoulder is around 15 mm, on the trunk they are around 30 to 40 mm long. The slender tail is pointed and not bushy, it is yellowish brown and ends in a black tip.

The skull is high and rounded, characteristic are the large eye sockets , which make up more than 20% of the length of the skull. The snout is relatively large and pointed. The ears are small and crescent-shaped, they can be closed to prevent sand from entering when digging. The tooth formula is I 3/3 - C 1 / 1- P 3 / 3- M 2/2, so you have a total of 36 teeth. The outer upper incisors are larger than the rest of the incisors, the upper canines are straight, the lower ones curved. The molars show adaptations to the insect food: the molars are wide and have pointed cusps, the crushing cutters present in all land carnivores are only weakly pronounced.

habitat

Meerkats live in southern Africa. Occurrences are known from the Republic of South Africa , western and southern Namibia , southwestern Botswana and a small part of southwestern Angola . The lower elevations of Lesotho may also be settled . They live in dry, open landscapes with short grassland and sparse woody growth. Their preferred habitat is the savannah , but they also live in semi-deserts .

Way of life

As very sociable animals, meerkats live in colonies of up to thirty individuals. Usually only the dominant female reproduces with two to three litters per year, while the subdominant females are pushed into the sterile helper role. However, the reproductive suppression does not always work perfectly, so that these females also throw occasionally. There is then strong reproductive competition between dominant and subdominant females, and attempts are made to mutually kill each other in the first 24 hours after birth. The dominant female is one step ahead in this competition, however, because her social supremacy means she is able to drive potential child killers out of the group for the risky time around birth. If the young animals have survived the first few days, the excluded females are welcome again as helpers in the group. A colony maintains a building together. Although they can dig themselves, they prefer to spare themselves this work and take possession of the constructions of gophers , which they then only need to expand. In the course of the division of labor, several members of the group crouch in front of the entrances, only sitting on their back legs, and keep an eye out for enemies. A characteristic bark is given as an alarm signal, which is the signal for all animals in the colony to seek refuge in the burrow as quickly as possible. The task of keeping watch changes among the animals several times during the day. While some group members keep watch, others search for food. This consists of almost 90% insects and, to a lesser extent, birds, lizards, scorpions and eggs. Meerkats are diurnal; At night, but also on rainy days and in particularly extreme midday heat, they hide in their burrows.

A litter includes around two to four young. The wearing time is on average 77 days. At birth, the boys' eyes and ears are closed. They only open after two weeks. The young animals are suckled for the first two months. Meerkats are sexually mature after about a year. Meerkats can raise young up to three times a year. This is possible because all members of the colony support each other in rearing. Meerkats live to be around six years old.

The boys are gradually taught how to make prey, i.e. how to catch and kill. For example, they first present the boys with a dead scorpion when they go hunting. Then they present a living scorpion, but they have torn out the poison sting. Only when the young are older and the adults have been able to observe them for a longer period of time is more and more living and fighting prey presented. The boys' cry of begging, which changes with age, provides orientation for this.

Meerkats and people

The meerkat got its name because it often stands on two legs, like a human, to observe its surroundings. In English they are called "Meerkat" after their Afrikaans name, but this has nothing to do with the primate genus Vervet Monkey . Meerkats are not always welcome in the Republic of South Africa. They sometimes destroy farmland with their construction. They can also transmit rabies , and in several cases people have been bitten and infected by rabid meerkats.

The BBC TV documentary The Last Dragons reports on how trained meerkats are used to track snakes in urban apartments. The movie Guardians of the Desert by James Honeyborne from 2008 revolves around a family of meerkats . This film mixes documentary with a narrated plot and thus becomes an "adventure film for children."

In the Disney film The Lion King , one of the main characters is a meerkat named Timon . The character also appears in the television series Adventures with Timon and Pumbaa .

In the novels by Moritz Matthies (pseudonym) published by S. Fischer Verlag , Ergefressen , Voll Speed , Dumm Gelaufen , Dickes Fell and Last Runde , meerkats from a Berlin zoo act as detectives in murder cases.

Sometimes meerkats are confused with the prairie dogs that live in North America . However, these are rodents and not closely related to the meerkats.

Danger

Despite the occasional chase, the meerkat is not threatened. Accordingly, it is classified as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Gilchrist et al. a. 2009, p. 323.
  2. MJ van Staaden: Suricata suricatta. In: Mammalian Species , No. 483, 1994, pp. 1-8.
  3. ^ A b D. Macdonald, M. Hoffmann: Suricata suricatta . In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.1, 2011, accessed July 4, 2011.
  4. ^ Eckart Voland: Sociobiology. The evolution of cooperation and competition. Springer publishing house. Berlin Heidelberg. 2013. p. 40
  5. Herbert Cerutti: From animals an honorable family. In: NZZ Folio . Zurich 2007, p. 66, ISSN  1420-5262 .
  6. ^ J. Madden, H. Kunc, S. English, T. Clutton-Brock: Why do meerkat pups stop begging? In: Animal Behavior. Vol. 78, No. 1, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 85-89. doi: 10.1016 / j.anbehav.2009.03.011 .
  7. The Last Dragons BBC EXCLUSIVE
  8. Lexicon of International Films - Film Year 2008: Guardians of the Desert . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89472-663-8 , p. 464; Meerkat in the lexicon of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  9. Fischerverlage.de novel Ausgefressen

literature

  • Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . Johns Hopkins University Press, London 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
  • JS Gilchrist, AP Jennings, G. Veron, P. Cavallini: Family Herpestidae (Mongooses). In: Don E. Wilson, Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Vol. 1. Carnivores. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2009, pp. 262-329, ISBN 84-96553-49-3 .
  • Moira J. van Staaden: Suricata suricatta (PDF; 982 kB) . In: Mammalian Species . Washington 1994, 483, pp. 1-8, ISSN  0076-3519 .

Web links

Commons : Meerkat  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Meerkat  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations