By Rose Lund

Dawn on the flat Free State veld. We spot him standing on a rise, stretched rigidly upright on dainty hind legs, dark ears pricked, eyes brightly alert behind the dark mask on the sharp foxy face. For a fanciful moment it almost seems as if this pint-sized bandit is poised to whip out both side-arms in debonair Johnny Depp style.

After a moment or two of intense surveillance, he scutters agilely down to ground-level zero. Suddenly there are more of him in various sizes, boiling out of the hole in the dry, scrubby sand; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins, a gang of pirate look-alikes. Adults start grooming one another or sunning themselves, while pups tumble over each other exuberantly. The meerkats’ day has begun.

     Suricata suricatta to give him his proper name, is usually called suricate for short, and is a type of mongoose. The Dutch name, Meerkat is a misnomer. It is suggested that through Indian sailors or traders of the Dutch East Indian Company, Dutch settlers may have been familiar with the word markata, Sanskrit for monkey. The settlers apparently misidentified the Cape suricate, since the actual Dutch word for suricate is “stockstaartjie”, little stick-tail. Johnny D is a desert-dweller and predominates in the drier semi-desert and desert areas of southern Africa. He actually avoids water, choosing to sit out the rain with the rest of the gang in the den. Though he may use water opportunistically, he can obtain all the fluid he needs from his normal diet.

     Mother Earth provides Johnny D with plenty of food-to-go in her underground and topside larders; worms, insects, small reptiles, even birds, eggs and fruit. Ant larvae are a favourite delicacy rivalled only by a scrumptious scorpion, which is expertly consumed by first dragging it through the sand, then neatly biting off the stinger. Though the gang by and large forages together, individuals do not share, since portions are small and the meerkat needs to make up the 5% body mass he loses every night – sleeping!

     While their cousin, the mongoose, typically lives alone or in pairs, meerkats live in communities of up to 40, known as a gang or mob. They are usually described as a mob when danger causes them to group close together in order to give the possible attacker an impression of one large, don’t-mess-with-me entity. Standing with all four feet on the ground, the average fully-grown meerkat measures a bare 15 centimetres high and weighs up to a frugal 800 grams. Their bodies are long and sleek with long, thin, dark-tipped tails which are held high, radar-fashion, while foraging. This is believed to identify other gang members who, to casual observers, may all look identical, but the markings on their backs are unique and no two are the same. In winter, the stomach acts as a natural solar panel. Beneath the pale, thin fur is a patch of dark skin which absorbs and stores the winter sunlight. Meerkats are short-sighted, depending a lot on smell to locate their food and recognise one another but their distance vision is outstanding. Similar to the chameleon, meerkats have a nictitating membrane between the eye and the lid which wipes the eye clean of sand when they blink, a practical necessity when digging furiously for underground creepy-crawlies. The swashbuckling eye patch reduces glare, enabling them to look directly into the sun – a brilliant defence against attack by predatory birds.

     These delightful little desert denizens are intelligent, sociable, frisky and playful. …….