Creature Feature: MONGOOSE!

So I'm in Hawaii, right now. There is flora and fauna that I've never seen anywhere else everywhere. Oh, and I've also caught a few glimpses of a species that one does not expect to see in Hawaii: the mongoose.

Source.

How did I not do the mongoose before? Mongooses are weird little carnivores that  are related to civets and hyenas- yeah, picture that family reunion for a sec. Like hyenas, they are more closely related to cats than dogs. Even the names "mongoose" and "ichneumon" are weird.  Although the Indian grey mongoose is the most well-known, there are some 33-odd species of mongooses, including the meerkat- which I did cover a very long time ago. Mongoose species are native to Africa and southern Eurasia, including India.

Like the honey badger, the mongoose is a badass. Its greatest achievement is taking down cobras. Mongooses are so well-known for this that Rudyard Kipling, the author of the Jungle Book (and the white man's burden) wrote "Rikki -Tikki-Tavi," an adorable little story about a mongoose saving a family of humans from a family of cobras. Seeing as mongooses are cute, fuzzy little things and cobras are cobras, it's obvious whom the audience will root for.

Nom nom nom nom nom....bring the kiddies. 

There's a bit of conflicting evidence about whether mongooses are technically immune to cobra venom or not. Almost everybody will cite that the mongoose has a thicker hide than most fuzzy animals. Most people will also cite a chemical immunity to at least part of a cobra's venom. Regardless, there's not much a snake can do against a mongoose. It's really not a fair match.

This snake-killing reputation has gone so far that researchers will consciously ignore everything else in order to sic a mongoose on snakes. There were efforts to curb the Okinawan habu, another venomous snake, by introducing the mongoose. Instead, it turned out that the two species were not even active at the same time, so the mongooses helped themselves to the native bird life. This incident was so famous that it remains a roadshow staple, and even got woven into Pokemon's Zangoose and Seviper. Y'know, even though it was an epic failure.

Image cropped from a Bulbapedia scan. N.B.- Zangoose has Immunity, and an overall better stat spread than Seviper. Once again, this is not a fair match.

Speaking of epic fail, introducing a mongoose to an island for any reason is a bad idea 99% of the time. Even if your excuse is rodent or snake control, mongooses are versatile little buggers. They don't really look to kill snakes as much as honey badgers do; if there's easier prey, they'll take it. Although they can kill venomous snakes pretty easily, the same really goes for almost anything smaller than the mongoose. The Hawaiian o'-o', among other birds, fell prey to the mongoose because they had no defenses against any predators. They had originally been brought over to kill rats and other vermin, but screw that- those birds had nothing to protect them. It's like choosing from a pre-packaged steak or getting out there and shooting the cow yourself. Maybe people trying to control pests should think of things that way!

Thing is, Hawaii also has Stitch. Mongooses are pretty awesome, but Stitch is immune to everything but water. Game, set, match, mongoose.

[Unfortunately, I could not find an image of Stitch VS a mongoose. You'll have to use your imagination. ]

Creature Feature: Meerkats.

Mongooses are already pretty cool creatures as far as their relationships with humans go. Even though they do not necessarily make good pets, they kill snakes, which humans generally consider a good thing.  Anything that gets rid of snakes, the rough antithesis of humanity in many cultures, is A-OK.

So how is it possible that a mongoose could be even more human-friendly? By making them act like people.



Meerkats (Suricatta suricatta) are close relatives of the mongoose. They are native to the Kalahari Desert (covering Botswana and South Africa). Like mongooses (mongeese?), meerkats are carnivorous, chowing down on insects, snakes, small mammals, and scorpions.  They are partially-immune to the venom of some species and 100% immune to the venom of scorpions.

Meerkat Manor is a slight stretch, but unlike many mongoose species, meerkats are social animals. They normally live in colonies of 20-30 meerkats all sired by the same male and female pair. Some colonies contain around 50 members, still all inbred cousins. As in wolves, only the alpha male and female are allowed to mate; the other meerkats show signs of submission such as licking their alpha's faces. This should sound like another social animal that we all know.

Can I be a mongoose-dog?

 

Meerkats have amazingly complex burrow networks throughout their territories. These allow a meerkat colony to escape whenever danger is around using nearby "bolt holes." Meerkats will also rotates burrows so as to let an insect population flourish in one section for a while. Call us crazy, but that sounds almost like farming. Almost.

 

Meerkats also have several different types of call. There are distinct warning cries uttered by a sentry, i.e. one of the meerkats standing on its hind legs all the time. These cries can be very, very specific, telling the exact location and type of predator. Meerkats also make several other noises that boggle human minds. Some say that only humans have language; social animals like meerkats come darn close.

Do not, however, attempt to make a meerkat a pet. They are adorable and act a lot like dogs, but they get hysterical if only one meerkat is around, scent mark like crazy, and will tear up things in an attempt to make a burrow. Hell, even owning regular mongooses is illegal...except in Hawaii.


STILL not like this. 

There are, however, some people who have gotten sick to the teeth of meerkats. An extremely popular ad campaign in Britain for "Compare the Market" has led to a slew of meerkat-related merchandise. The Russian meerkat from that commercial, Aleksandr Orlov, even has his own autobiography. No matter how much you love meerkats, this is like the Geico gecko suddenly getting his own book. Simples? 

In Soviet Russia, meerkat compares you!

 


Tomorrow: A pig under the sea. Kinda.