Meet the Meerkats
Posted at 1:18 pm November 19, 2007 by Laura Weiner
If you have ever stopped by Elephant Mesa at the San Diego Zoo, you have surely spent some time watching our playful meerkats. There is always something going on in their exhibit. We have a group of eight: four adults and four juveniles.
Meerkat society is quite complicated. There is a dominant female that is the only one breeding and having babies. Sometimes one of the subordinate females will also get pregnant, but usually her babies do not survive. We have dominant female Ngami, the male Ghanzi, and two subordinate females named Seronga and Kasane. They arrived from South Dakota over a year ago and have been digging ever since.
Ngami is the adult with the shortest tail. She arrived at the San Diego Zoo with a short tail and a tough attitude. If you can’t see her tail you just have to look for the one shoving the others out of the way with her shoulders. As the dominant female she is in charge of keeping everyone in line and reminding them frequently that she won’t accept anything less.
Ghanzi is the adult male who is a sweet boy. He also lost a bit of his tail in a fight with one of the girls. He is usually the sentry, or lookout, and also likes to bark whenever he hears me raking or I arrive with food. Seronga is a subordinate female with an inch-long brown mark at the end of her tail, and Kasane’s brown tail tip is two inches long. These girls also have very scarred faces from always getting in fights with Ngami. Lately things have been pretty quiet in the antibiotic area: no facial abscesses for a while! We hope that will continue.
Then there are four juveniles born on March 5, 2007. They are very playful and curious like the adults. There are two males and two females. They all appear pretty much the same and are difficult to tell apart. We hope that as they grow their differences will become apparent. They are almost the same size as the adults, but their heads are much smaller. You can usually find them digging, with mom Ngami leaning back relaxing in the dirt, or cuddling with one of the adults, or trying to bite me, their other favorite pastime! This litter was the group’s third attempt at raising pups. The first litter had to be rescued and are now living in the Zoo’s Children’s Zoo with the names Kala and Hari (see blog, Meerkats Form New Family). The second litter was one pup and it disappeared after two weeks. We were wondering if this group would ever be successful at raising pups and were delighted when four babies emerged from the den after two weeks underground.
Laura Weiner is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo.
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November 19th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Hi, Laura! Have you been able to watch ” Meerkat Manor” on Animal Planet over the last year? I have, and I just love these meerkats! They are so much fun to watch, and I have learned so much about them since this program was brought on the air by AP. They are a very complex social group, and the dynamics of each meerkat group are so different. Watching ” Meerkat Manor” , I learned that every meerkat mob have different agendas in making sure that their particular mob gets thru each day, survives, and lives to see another day. A few of the mobs, such as the Lazuli, Commandos, and Zappa can be pretty ruthless when it comes to taking over another meerkat mob’s territory. The Whiskers group has the largest number of meerkats living under one burrow—close to 50 meerkats—and have been the strongest mob of meerkats in their area of the Kalahari. I watched the third season, and the Whiskers finally split up a few months after they lost their dominant female, Flower, to a deadly snake bite. The fourth season that’s coming up early next year will tell us how this split up will turn out. This is what makes watching these meerkats and learning about their social structures and behaviors so interesting. Can’t wait for ” Meerkat Manor 4″ to start so that I can watch what will happen to all of these meerkat groups.
You all have a neat job in handling the meerkats. I’m sure that everyday with them shows you something different about them. It looks like Ngami is a tough customer to deal with when she’s not in a good mood. But, as the dominant female, she’s doing her job in keeping her group together and on track even if it’s in a large exhibit at SDZ!
Have fun with the meerkats, you all! And, I hope that you will get a chance to watch ” Meerkat Manor” when it comes back on the schedule on Animal Planet!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
November 20th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Hi Laura. Thanks for introducing us to the meerkats on Elephant Mesa. Meerkats have always been my favorite animals in the entire zoo. And now, thanks to the success of Meerkat Manor, people have been checking out our cute little mongoose friends in droves and wanting to learn all about them. They’re certainly some of the biggest highlights on my tours despite their small stature. What they lack in size they make up for in their ability to capture the delight of everyone around them. The zoo is thankful to have such a great and happy group of little animal friends and I’m sure they’ll continue inspire and bring a smile to many faces for years to come.
November 21st, 2007 at 5:35 am
It amazes me how relaxed these animals are around humans.
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad Meerkat Manor season 3 is over (well, partially). I hate to see all of those meerkats that we’ve known when season 3 was being posted on the AP website and the ones we’ve knowned since the beginning of Meerkat Manor die! A reminder of some famous ones from all seasons that have passed away:
Shakespeare
Tosca
Carlos
Flower
Kinkajou
Mozart
November 26th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Thanks, Laura, for the great blog about the Meerkats. It is my sister’s favorite animal. We always have to stop and watch the antics of the Meerkats at NZP. Sounds like you have quite a time ” defending” yourself from the rambunctious group.
I look forward to updates on the litter that was raised at the Children’s Zoo. I recall reading about them earlier and found it fascinating and amuzing.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Hi! Just writing to let all of you meerkat fans know that the meerkats made the top 10 list on Animal Planet’s Top 100 animal list. I think that they were no. 6 on the list. YEA!!! That just goes to show that these animals have a great appeal to us humans, and that they are a lot of fun to watch. Cameron (#4), thanks for remembering the meerkats that have passed away that were a part of Meerkat Manor. You forgot one other meerkat that passed away—Daisy. According to the program and the researchers, Daisy was a possible victim of a bird of prey in the Kalahari. She was not in very good health as it was, and her chances of surviving the latest round of not being a part of a meerkat group were pretty slim, even tho she had beaten the odds a few other times before. Her Starsky group had a short life, such as it was, but at least Daisy was a part of a meerkat group for a brief time in her short life.
I wish SDZ could get a meerkat cam up and running. Would love to watch these meerkats do their daily thing everyday!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
December 5th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Please tell me if Meerkat Manor is coming back to Animal Planet soon with new stories.
Thanks. J.Miller
Moderator’s note: You’ll have to contact Animal Planet directly.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I think its pretty sad that daisy died.:-(. i love to watch meercat manor when im on a channel i go to animal planet if its on i go to it first thing snap like lol! o how mabey baby mercats do they have too? just wonber about how much:-.