Meerkat is a small mammal that lives in the deserts and grasslands in South Africa, Namibia, and southwestern Angola, and the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. They belonged to the family of mongoose. Meerkat’s scientific name is Suricata suricatta. They look super cute with busy and brown strips on its body. Plus, they have pointed faces and large eyes that make them unique from other creatures. Around, they are 12 inches in height and 2 pounds in weight. Below you can get more exciting and interesting facts about meerkats that may be new to you.
Interestingly, Meerkat lives in underground mobs and, everyone participates in gathering food, keeping a lookout for predators, and taking care of the babies. They are highly social creatures that live together in burrows, which they dig with their long, sharp claws. Their burrows can be 5 meters long and encompass multiple entrances, tunnels, and rooms. A group can use up to five distinct burrows at a time. When a colony gets overpopulated, they typically disperse and form another small group to ensure that there will be enough food for all.
10: Diet of Meerkat
Generally, meerkats are omnivores. They eat everything like bugs, floras, fruits, roots, bulbs of plants, scorpions, eggs, reptiles, worms, insects, fungi, centipedes, etc. Besides, they are safe from the poison or venom of some creatures such as snakes and scorpions.
09: They can discriminate between each other’s voices
Meerkats are Just like humans, can identify their friend’s and family’s voices over the phone; meerkats also can distinguish between the calls of different members of their clan, it observed during research in 2011. In this study, experts played a recording of the same group of meerkats from unseen speakers on opposite sides to test animals. Signifying that they recognized this as an extraordinary situation, the test meerkats presented a prolonged vigilance, paying much closer attention than they did to other recorded calls.
08: Social workers
One of the interesting facts is that Meerkats are social workers. Their clans, also known as mobs and gangs, hunt together in a supportive effort that contains nominated members who rotate regularly and keeps a close eye on predators and, all rely on a series of distinct calls to communicate with their compatriots. If a predator like a snake is spotted, the gang started to gather and harass the snake, biting and clawing at it until it ran away or is killed. But they can boldly move in a group not, alone.
07: Selfish creatures too
Another one of the nasty but not too interesting facts about female meerkats is that alpha females only have their interests at heart. According to the 2013 study showed that when a gang of meerkats approaches a road, which represented a strange and potential danger. Alpha females tend to suddenly fall back, letting lower-ranking females brave the pavement first.
06: Meerkats use their Bellies to keep warm
Meerkats use their bellies to keep themselves warm. An interesting fact about meerkats is that the hair is thin enough that you can see their black skin underneath—which is precisely the point. After a calming night in the frigid burrow, they climb back out into the desert sun and stand up to expose their bare bellies to getting rays, which absorb heat and warm them.
05: Gang Fighters
Although, they are social creatures and even friendly within their clan. But interesting facts about meerkats are that they are highly regional and will engage in ferocious wars with neighboring gangs. They fight in a gang with others posturing and attempting to intimidate the opposition first. If this fails, the fight will be ephemeral but, deadly in this war than less, than half of all adult meerkats survive any given year.
04: Life span of meerkats
Meerkats can live up to about 10 to 14 years or more. Interesting facts about meerkats are that most of them survive up to their average age. But, many lost their lives in gang wars and, occasionally they suffer from poor vision at short range though they have excellent long-range eyesight.
03: Bolt holes
Meerkats excavate safe places that are called bolt holes through their hunting area, where they can hide in an emergency. But if they are caught in the open area by a predator, they will try to look violent, lying on its back and displaying their sharp teeth and claws. If a group is opposed to a meerkat, they stand together, arching their backs, raising their hair, and hissing. This activity sometimes fools an invader into thinking that they are a single large, brutal creature.
02: Social activities
One of the interesting facts is that Meerkats also take part in social activities. A meerkat can kill its subordinates at some point to improve the position of their offspring. Sometimes they also take part in wrestling matches and other social activities.
01: Sharp senses
Meerkats have highly advanced senses of smell, vision, and hearing to recognize their predators. Alarming sounds or calls by other meerkats warn them about the prospective enemy. The semicircular shape of their ears assists in closing the ears while digging burrows to avert sand from getting inside their ears. They can detect as many as ten calls and can even discriminate between the different calls made for prey and killers. Interesting fact that meerkats’ magnificent eyes are surrounded by inherent sunglasses that glance at rays of the scorching sun from their eyes. They have good far sight but, sadly their near-eyesight is poor.
