Family meerkat in the wild

by Patricia Hofmeester

Title

Family meerkat in the wild

Artist

Patricia Hofmeester

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

A family of Meerkats - Suricata suricatta- near their burrow at dusk; Oudsthoorn, the Karoo, South Africa.

Meerkats are shy and afraid of almost everything. In South Africa near Oudtshoorn in the Karoo desert it has taken researchers years to be able to observe the meerkats in their natural habitat. I went there and was so lucky to see one of the families of meerkats who live there.

Meerkats are small burrowing animals, living in large underground networks with multiple entrances which they leave only during the day, except to avoid the heat of the afternoon. They are very social creatures and they live in colonies together. Animals in the same group groom each other regularly. The alpha pair often scent-mark subordinates of the group to express their authority.
The meerkat uses its tail to balance when standing upright, as well as for signaling. The eyes always have black patches around them, and they have small black crescent-shaped ears. Meerkats have binocular vision, with two eyes on the front of the face.

They earn their spot because of their enormous personal space bubble (around 200m-300m for a completely wild family away from human contact). You can find meerkats in the semi dessert and dessert like areas in Southern Africa. They are insectivores living in gangs of up to 20 members but usually only about 7 - 12 members are average. They are lead by a dominant female and her mate which can breed up to 3 times per year. Meerkats have an average life span of about 6-7 years in the wild. At night they live underground and after sunrise they come above ground and warm up in the sunshine.
When it is cold they huddle together to keep warm.

Thank you for visiting my art galeries. If you like visiting other countries but you can't do that in person or want to reminisce, feel free to look at my many galeries and enjoy for instance landscapes and landmarks from all over the world.

See more of my WILDLIFE work:
https://pixels.com/profiles/patricia-hofmeester?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=886382

See more of my galleries at: https://pixels.com/profiles/patricia-hofmeester

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September 24th, 2019

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