Mad about meerkats: They're impossibly cute, have great family values and have become Britain's favourite animal


What is it about meerkats? A generation ago, hardly anyone outside their native continent had heard of these engaging little African mongooses (or should that be mongeese?).

In the great roll-call of cute and charismatic creatures, from the marmoset to the polar bear, the meerkat - a slender little thing, about the size of an elongated rabbit and resembling the offspring of a monkey and a ferret - was rarely to be seen on screen.

These days, of course, they are everywhere. They star in their own TV ad - for an insurance price comparison site. 

Meerkats

On guard: The meerkats are endearing for their trademark pose of being erect on two legs with their front limbs hanging down

The improbably-clad meerkat in a smoking jacket, who explains the difference between 'comparethemeerkat.com, comparethemarket.com - seemples!' in a heavy Russian accent, has become quite a hit with viewers.

And now they have their very own film, Meerkat: The Movie, which is set to do for this creature what March Of The Penguins did for the eponymous flightless Antarctican birds, complete with worldclass photography and a saccharine-soaked narrative.

Meerkats have been appropriated by everything from banks to the Neighbourhood Watch scheme - a symbol for friendly vigilance, the can-do boy scouts of the animal world.

It all began in 1987, when the BBC screened one of its magnificent wildlife documentaries, Meerkats United, starring a colony of the animals.

Narrated by David Attenborough, the programme brought the lives of these intelligent creatures into our living rooms for the first time. It was one of the BBC's greatest hits and shown all over the world.

The Russian meerkat from the advert for an insurance price comparison site

TV star: The Russian meerkat from the advert for an insurance price comparison site

But a wildlife documentary is not enough to turn an animal from critter to friend. There must be something else, an essential element which makes us empathise with an animal.

In the meerkat's case, for a start, there is something eerily expressive about their faces.

Like apes, monkeys, some bears, pandas and cats, meerkats have flattish, round faces with a small nose and eyes that face forward. This, together with their charismatic facial markings (the patches of dark fur accentuating their already large eyes), gives these animals an immediately humanlike appearance which we can relate to.

Running around, meerkats look like just any other small furry animal. But their trademark pose - erect on two legs, their front limbs hanging down, alert eyes scanning the horizon for predators, mouth set in a slight wry smile - is endearing almost beyond belief.

If you were to sit down and design an animal specifically to tug at the human heartstrings, you would come up with something like this. The meerkat is, in effect, a cartoon animal made real.

But they don't just look sweet; their behaviour is endearing as well. Like some apes (including us) and baboons, the meerkat is an extremely social animal, living in tightknit colonies of between 20 and 30 individuals who make their homes in vast networks of tunnels.

Like other social creatures, meerkats display many types of altruistic behaviour. Nature might be red in tooth and claw in the arid deserts of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa where the meerkat makes its home, but in the actual colonies, all is (for the most part) sweetness and light.

Meerkats live in tightknit colonies of between 20 and 30 individuals

Social creatures: Meerkats live in tightknit colonies of between 20 and 30 individuals

The animals bond in a series of grooming rituals which can go on for hours. The courtship ritual of the meerkat consists not of the males displaying or fighting, but simply hours of persistent stroking and grooming of the female until she relents.

The colony leaders, a couple called the alpha-pair, engage in a complex series of rituals and scent-markings to establish their dominance and to reinforce kinship within the colony, called a 'mob' or a 'clan', which usually consists only of close relatives.

But what really makes these animals stand out is their coordinated behaviour, which rivals that of chimps, baboons, dolphins and even humans in its complexity and efficiency.

The education of the pups is a communal affair, as is feeding - meerkat females are known to wet-nurse and babysit the young of their sisters and cousins, and even of unrelated animals.

But perhaps the most famous and endearing behaviour trait of the meerkat is 'standing sentry'.

Typically, while out foraging for the insects, lizards, small birds and eggs that form the bulk of their diet, one or more meerkats will stand guard, keeping an eye out for predators for up to an hour at a time, shifts relieved in rotation.

Meerkats of both sexes stand guard, too, over the burrows containing the colony's newlyborn young, until the pups emerge aged about three weeks.

They have acute senses of sight, hearing and smell, and seem to have a rudimentary form of language, with various barks and calls signifying key information, such as the presence of a predator or food.

What is unusual is the extent to which meerkats will teach their young.

For instance, pups are shown how to tackle a scorpion (a favourite morsel) by the adult first removing the stinger, thus helping the youngster to learn how to kill the creature in safety.

Meerkats are also extremely playful, engaging in mockfights and scampering in what appear to be races.

A couple of years ago pictures were released by a news agency - pictures apparently taken by inquisitive meerkats who had stumbled upon a mislaid camera in the Longleat safari park in Wiltshire.

The meerkat pictures were, in fact, a clever hoax, but the fact that it took months for anyone to suspect as much shows to what extent the lively intelligence of Suricata suricatta - its Latin name - has become part of the popular imagination.

We can anthropomorphise to excess, of course. These are wild animals, and carnivores to boot; it would be a mistake to assume that life in the meerkat colony is completely peaceful. Young are sometimes killed by older animals in a bid to improve their pecking order in the group.

Meerkats Marvin and Mara under the mistletoe at London Zoo

Cheeky: Meerkats Marvin and Mara under the mistletoe at London Zoo

Females are routinely evicted (often forming the nucleii of new colonies) and groups might fragment when food becomes scarce, in effect increasing the geographical range.

It is this range of complex behaviour - and, of course, their physical cuteness - that has made these animals such a hit with humans. At London Zoo, one of the most popular exhibits is the new meerkat enclosure, which is home to four of the creatures: a senior male called Athos, plus three youngsters - Pipsqueak, Junior and Shortstack.

Senior keeper Tony Dobbs, 31, says thousands of visitors are drawn to the enclosure each day.

'You do get quite attached to the meerkats - they're friendly and come over to say hello,' he adds.

In fact, the only downside is their human visitors' spontaneous compulsion to do an impression.

'I love the comparethe meerkat.com advert,' says Tony, 'but it's really starting to grate on me now that nine out of ten people who come to this enclosure do an impression of the ad.'

But if you're tempted to get a little closer, remember that the zoo - or, better still, the wild - is the best place to see a meerkat.

Thanks to their popularity, a market has arisen for this animal as a pet. They are being advertised, quite legally, online for several hundred pounds each.

Experts, however, strongly advise against trying to keep them as one, the fear being that as with other popular but essentially wild animals, any attempt to recreate at home what is seen in the cinema will lead to inevitable cruelty.

Some years ago, thousands of terrapins were bought as a result of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze. But many of these animals, sadly, found themselves thrown away or washed down the drain.

Used to living in large groups in a climate wholly different from ours, meerkats can become aggressive and depressed if forced to live on their own, and their powerful claws and teeth can reduce whole living rooms to shreds.

Something the meerkat in the advert would, of course, never, ever do.

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