Adorable Meerkats!

Meerkats eat both plants and animals. They enjoy fruits, roots of plants, and eggs. They eat various types of bugs, such as termites, beetles, centipedes, and grubs, as well as worms and snails. They also eat mice, birds, lizards, and snakes, which they kill by biting and shaking them.

But guess what their favorite food is! The scorpion!! It isn't that scorpion venom doesn't bother meerkats at all, as is commonly believed. Instead, Meerkats have developed a technique which keeps them safe while allowing them to enjoy the tasty treat of a scorpion. They first bite off the tail of the scorpion, and then drag the scorpion's body through the sand to remove any traces of venom on the exoskeleton! Thus, they can eat scorpions without being bitten! Baby meerkats are not born knowing how to carry out this technique, and so other members of the mob teach them, one step at a time. For more information on how meerkats eat scorpions, you may wish to visit: Are meerkats immune to poison?, by Josh Clark.

Like all living things, meerkats need water. But water is often hard to find in the savanna! Sometimes they find water in streams or puddles, but they get most of their water from their food.

The clip art of the scorpion in this section comes from: Free Clip Art Now.

Return to:
What You'll Find On This Page

When meerkats smell some prey under the ground, they rapidly start digging! And boy do they dig! In only a few seconds, they can dig up as much dirt as they weigh! Because dirt flies everywhere as they dig, they often close their ears to keep the dirt out of them!

The text is in French, but I found a website which shows two photos clearly highlighting the difference in meerkats' ears when they are closed and when they are open. (After you click the link, scroll down to see the two photos of a meerkat's ears.)



Return to:
What You'll Find On This Page

Photo credit: Tambako

Photo credit: Meerkats Wiki