What Meerkats Eat & How They Find Their Food

Meerkats are primarily insectivores, eating worms, crickets, grasshoppers, scorpions and ant larvae as main dietary sources. They will also occasionally indulge in a meal of small rodents, reptiles, snakes or birds--but only when food is plentiful and several meerkats can join in on the kill. Meerkats forage in the same area, but they eat alone since the portions of their meal only amount to enough food for one animal. They will usually search for food within 6-45 feet  of another meerkat so as to not invade one another's space. The amount of distance they leave depends on how plentiful the food source is in that area. If it is sparse, they have to spread out more to find enough food for everyone to consume.

As I said in the last post, meerkats live in a community and this is true even when foraging. The clan sends one of its members to be the  "sentry"--or lookout. This is usually the meerkat that is best fed at the time and this duty (lasting about an hour at a time) cycles through members of the clan, with both male and female adult meerkats taking over the post. The sentry is in charge of looking for potential danger while the others forage for food. If trouble is sensed, the lookout will whistle or bark an alarm to alert the members of the danger coming. The clan then bands together in what is called a mob--the term for a clan of meerkats in fighting mode--and gets ready to fend off any attackers.

                                           A meerkat on sentry duty for the clan.

Since the act of foraging does hold potential for danger, pups are left in the den with several meerkats who are on babysitting duty. Some of the meerkats who are out foraging are in charge of collecting enough food to bring back for its members who are in the den. The young pups are slowly allowed to shadow their parents on foraging trips and learn how to forage on their own as they get older. The most important trick the pups are taught is how to take the stinger off of scorpions--one of the most popular and plentiful meals for meerkats.

                         A mother teaching its young pup how to properly eat a scorpion.

Meerkats often have to search far underground for their food, since insects burrow for shade and moisture. Their front claws are curved, which allows them to dig very deep, very quickly. In the summer when insects are especially far underground, a meerkat might have to dig its own body weight just to find a meal! Being immune to several insect poisons allows meerkats to eat a variety of insects that are inedible to many other animals. Meerkats drag a poisonous insect--such as a scorpion or millipede--around in the dirt to get rid of the poisonous chemicals secreted. They then quickly bite off the stinger and eat the rest of the body for nutrients. Since other animals in their environment cannot eat poisonous insects so easily, the meerkat usually has a lush supply of scorpions and other poisonous insects to feed their appetite.

                                   Meerkats foraging at the Adelaide Zoo in Australia.

Since meerkats do not have body fat stores, they must forage daily in order to survive. They do not reserve fat or nutrients to last them, they must constantly find food to fill them up. This is usually not difficult since the staple of their diet--insects--are often plentiful and easy to find. Interestingly, meerkats do not need a constant water source, as they get plenty of liquid from the insects they ingest. If a water hole is near they will most definitely take a drink, but their day to day water consumption is done through the eating of the insects and small reptiles they find while digging.


Resources:
http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm#Meerkat cuisine
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/mammals/meerkats1.htm
http://www.kalahari-meerkats.com/index.php?id=faq_meerkat_bio#c628

How Timon & His Family Came To Be...

The meerkat species has been most popularized by Disney's The Lion King--where the inspiration for this blog started--as well as Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor, a show dedicated to documenting the daily ins and outs of this adorable little creature. The meerkat's name can be confusing, as it is not a member of the cat family--even though the Dutch meaning of the word meerkat is "lake cat." It is believed that the name started as a spin-off of the Dutch word for monkey, as this is what African sailors on Dutch ships were familiar with. They attached the name to the wrong animal! Meerkats are actually a member of the mongoose family (herpestidae). Their genus name-- Suricata is also Dutch and translates to "little stick tail." The binomial name for a meerkat is Suricata suricatta, and 3 subspecies have been identified (siricata--the ones that look like Timon, majoriae, and iona) .

                                       (A clan of Suricata suricatta sircata meerkats in Africa)

Meerkats live mainly in Southern Africa. They can be found extensively in the Namib and Kalahari deserts. Their close relatives are the Yellow mongoose and the Slender mongoose, both of which live in Southern Africa and can be found living in harmony with many meerkat clans, since they do not compete for the same resources. Meerkats build extensive underground burrows, called dens, which have many tunnels, entrances and "rooms" for all of the clan members to live in. The typical clan (which consists of 20-40 meerkats) has between 6 and 15 dens in their territorial area and they move dens every 1-2 days in order to stay away from predators. Meerkats are extremely social animals and their clan is a community with very specific roles and hierarchies. Since they are such small animals, living in groups and delegating roles helps to keep them safe.

It is thought that meerkats evolved from the banded mongoose in the southern tip of Africa. An extinct subspecies has been found there and seems to resemble most closely the banded mongoose. The meerkat is the only mongoose known to stand for long periods of time, and it is thought that this adaptive behavior aids in their survival by making them taller and more able to watch for predators. When meerkats are on all fours they are only 6" tall, but when they stand they are almost 12" tall. 

The meerkat spends a majority of their time in the wild guarding its clan from predators and foraging for food. For this reason, meerkats in captivity act quite differently than they would in the wild. Since food is abundant and predators do not exist, captive meerkats are not quite as vocal or active. They grow much larger and live longer than the typical wild meerkat. They do quite well in captivity, but making a meerkat a pet is not common, nor advised! They are agressive towards intruders and will not be happy about guests coming into their home. They also require a very specific climate that would be hard to keep in a residential area. Meerkats should remain in Africa and in zoos where they can be properly cared for and live happily :)

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suricata_suricatta

http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm#Meerkats are a type of Mongoose

http://www.fellowearthlings.org/