Meerkat: Feeding and Diet

The Meerkat, or scientifically know as Suricata suricatta, is a type of Mongoose. They inhabits all parts of the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. Being social animals, they live in colonies of up to forty meerkats, known as clans, gangs or sometimes mobs.

The meerkat has been seen eating lizards, eggs, small mammals, centipedes, spiders and snakes, but is considered primarily an insectivore and feeds mainly on insects such as beetles, grubs, termites and other invertebrates.

Mongoose for the most part are nocturnal creature, however meerkats hunt during the day. One member of the meerkat clan will act as a guard (usually the best fed meerkat at the time), and wait for predators, while the other meerkats go in search of food.

If there is a problem while the others are out looking for food, the guard will alarm them and they will return forming a mob and ready to fight.

There territory consists of about four square miles or so. Each day or two the meerkat hunt in different section, returning to the first section after about a week.

They will search for food together, however they catch and eat their food alone. Meerkats may share the task of catching and eating a large food item, such as a large lizard. They have also been seen standing on the shoulders of another to gather honey from nearby trees.

While searching for food the meerkat will spread out six to fort five feet apart, depending on the food availability. The meerkat has excellent sense of smell, and can even detect food that is hiding underground. Meerkats can dig very fast when after insects, spiders, snail, rodents, and critters of that sort.

Apparently resistant to many deadly venom's, the meerkat love to eat poisonous scorpions. They very quickly bits off their stingers and then consume the rest. Often they will drag a scorpion or millipede across the ground to remove its chemical defenses, then eat it,

Since most of their food is found underground their bodies have adapted for this. They have front curved claws that act as a shovel, they often dig more than their own weight just to get t o a small insect.

If one is nearby a meerkat will use a water source, however they have developed the ability to get their liquid from its food.

The baby meerkats do not start hunting until they are around one month old. They learn by following an older member of the group, who acts as a sort of tutor to the pup. Sometimes meerkats that are out hunting will bring food for their pups and the babysitter at the den.

When there are pups around, parent meerkats and helpers have a hard decision on who to feed first, themselves or the young, and if the young, which one. Apparently meerkats are more likely to feed the nearest pup, or the loudest.

The females feed the young more often then the males do, however they tend to feed mainly the female pups. When the males meerkats feed they feed both male and female pups the same. This may be why their is a higher survival rate in female pups than in male pups.

sources:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/SmallMammals/fact-meerkat.cfm00
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/12/5/59
http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm