Anyway, I have been a fan of nature shows ever since I was a little kid. For that matter I am obsessed with animals in general, especially the cute and fluffy ones. When I was little I used to claim to be an expert on animals- I probably was lying, but most people didn't know the difference.
Meerkats live in 'gangs' (sounds vicious) in South Africa and Botswana-- I think they secretly run the Diamond mines. Meerkats are also known in tribal lore as 'sun angels', which protect villages from the 'moondevil' which is believed to attack stray cattle or lone tribesmen. The word Meerkat is Afrikaans for Sea Cat or Swamp cat- but they claim this was a misdefinition. In reality the meerkat is a glorified mongoose. I think they look just like their North American counterparts the Prarie Dog.
Behavior wise, they act much like a wolf pack where only the dominant male and female reproduce, thus ensuring survival for their offspring with the collective help of the group. In Meerkat Manor the Dominant Male and Female of the Whiskers Family are Zaphod and Flower respectively. It appears that the Alpha male is not always the ultimate alpha. In the Whiskers family it appears that the group is Matriarchal, lead by Flower, whereas other groups shown on the show are definitely led by the male meerkat- like the Commandos' Hannibal- so named because he has one eye. I thought a good name for him would also be Admiral Nelson- like the British hero, you know- with one eye.
When Meerkats talk its called yodeling- crazy dutch Afrikaaners, and another interesting factiod is that the females who act as babysitters who are not allowed by the alphas to reproduce often lactate to feed the groups babies themselves. It takes a village I suppose. Sometimes groups or gangs will get too big and they will split getting lost and going to different shelters and thus sometimes the seperation becomes permenant. Also there are gangs of roving males that will sometimes attack a group, steal females, and in the Case of the Whiskers Family actually join
the group as the new Dominant males, Zaphod and Yossarian. Their brothers actually stole some of the beta females and created their own group called Gattaca.The reason this call all be filmed is there is a current study being conducted call the Kalahari Meerkat Project which surveys the long-term ecological causes and evolutionary consequences in cooperative breeding of meerkat groups. Film crews use Fiber-optic cables to film some scenes- whihc is actually quite impressive as they can view behavior in the burrow.
The film crews were housed in specially-built sheds, where they stayed until the meerkats became habituated to the presence of humans in their territory. The meerkats modified their behavior when humans were around; for example, they would seek shelter from cold early morning winds on the lee side of a human, and sometimes sentry meerkats climbed onto people if there was no suitable natural high place- which I find funny.
The main groups of study are the Whiskers Led by Flower and Zaphod- and should anything happen to those two- their daughter Rocket Dog. The Lazuli (pronounced Laj-u-lye). The Commandos- lead by Hannibal and Nikita (love the names!)-- they are neighbors from Hell. Starsky- lead by the evicted Whiskers female Mozart and Carlos. Zappa- lead by Houdini.Timon from Lion King is a meerkat, and the mascot of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
Meerkat vs. Prairie Dog
The fat North American cousin of the Meerkat. I guess they don't even really look the same, but they dig holes and live in burrows and have a similar family structure, only live in much smaller 'towns' or colonies. Lewis and Clark called them 'Barking squirrels'. Prarie Dog tunnels actually help channel rain water back into the ground to prevent errosion. In zoos, inorder to get the prarie dogs out of their holes in the spring they have to use a vaccuum and suck them out hahaha- imagine rodents flying up a tube! They also have a habit in captivity of coming when called by name.
These guys while considered a pest by ranchers, actually provide beneficial results to cattle grazing land, clearing it of some of the grasses no
t preferred by cattle. They also are a staple in the diet of most areal predators of the west where they live. They do the same stand up sentry thing that meerkats do.Native Americans of the Plains used to run their ponies through Prairie Dog fields, and those that didn't break their legs they would use as war horses.
The Prairie Dog Rapture ---->>>