Animal of the Week

The animal of the week is the Meerkat.

The meerkat is a small mamal that stands no taller than 12 inches. It lives in the Kalahari Desert, which in the afternoon at 115 degrease F it is no fun for a 2lb meerkat. The Kalahari Desert is located in Southern Africa which is in the countries of Nambia and Botzwanna . 

There about 40 meerkats to a clan. A typical day begins in the morning, they wake up bright and early tending to the house(burrow) chores, which means making the beds and cleaning up the living room. After the morning chores the dominant female and male take the group out foraging for food. A meerkats diet consists of scorpions, toads, millipedes, lizards, etc. They don't need to get water because they get their water from the food the eat. When foraging it is very dangerous if they have pups with them because they need to be on the look out constantly for predators like hawks, owls, and snakes.  Now, if the pups are too little to go foraging they stay with the baby sitters which are usually the older brothers and sisters of the dominant female. At the end of the day the meerkats go down into the burrows and snuggle together for a warm nights sleep. 

Fun Fact: Did you know that a meerkat loses 5% of its body weight while asleep each night?  That's why they need to forage and snack all day.