Meerkat

The little sentry standing guard

Meerkats live in the Kalahari Desert in big families. They stand up on their hind legs and look around — one 'sentry' calls out if it sees danger. Meerkats eat scorpions — the venom doesn't affect them! The whole family raises the pups and teaches them to hunt at 'school'.

The meerkat (Suricata suricatta) is a small carnivore of the mongoose family (30 cm, 800 g) living in the deserts of southern Africa. It lives in 'mobs' of 20–50 in underground burrows with 15 entrances. Its social life is complex: a rotating sentry, different alarm calls for eagles and snakes; adults teach pups to hunt by giving them first a dead scorpion, then a disarmed one, then a live one — a rare example of 'teaching' in animals. It is resistant to scorpion venom. Dark rings around its eyes cut the sun's glare ('natural sunglasses'). In the morning it warms up by turning its belly to the sun. Timon from 'The Lion King' is a meerkat.

Fun facts

• Meerkats teach their pups to hunt — first with a dead scorpion, then a live one.
• The black rings around a meerkat's eyes are natural sunglasses.
• Meerkats warn of an eagle and a snake with different 'words'.