Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Herpestidae > Suricata > Suricata suricatta

Suricata suricatta (Meerkat)

Synonyms: Viverra suricatta

Wikipedia Abstract

The meerkat or suricate (Suricata suricatta) is a small carnivoran belonging to the mongoose family (Herpestidae). It is the only member of the genus Suricata. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members. In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12–14 years, and about half this in the wild.
View Wikipedia Record: Suricata suricatta

Infraspecies

Suricata suricatta iona
Suricata suricatta marjoriae (Slender-tailed meerkat)
Suricata suricatta suricatta (Slender-tailed meerkat)

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
7
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
31
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 14.65
EDGE Score: 2.75
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.711 lbs (776 g)
Birth Weight [1]  29 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  70 %
Diet - Plants [2]  10 %
Diet - Vertibrates [2]  20 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Gestation [1]  77 days
Litter Size [1]  4
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  21 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  13 inches (32 cm)
Weaning [1]  44 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Kalahari Gemsbok National Park II 2382284 Northern Cape, South Africa
Namib-Naukluft National Park II 12585619 Namibia  
Richtersveld National Park II 399195 Northern Cape, South Africa
Skeleton Coast Game Park II 4168395 Namibia  

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Diospyros lycioides[4]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Atilax paludinosus (Marsh Mongoose)1
Cynictis penicillata (Yellow Mongoose)1
Galerella pulverulenta (Cape Gray Mongoose)1
Onychognathus nabouroup (Pale-winged Starling)1

Predators

Polemaetus bellicosus (Martial Eagle)[5]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4The Yellow Mongoose Cynictis penicillata and Other Small Carnivores in the Mountain Zebra National Park, C. F. Du Toit, Koedoe 23:179-184 (1980)
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6International Flea Database
♦ 7Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0