Japanese photographer mamekoro51 loves taking photos of baby animals of various types.
On a recent visit to Inokashira Natural Cultural Park in Musashino City, Tokyo, the animal lover met an adorable meerkat family with newborn pups, one of whom was a little shy for the camera.
This little meerkat was hiding behind the wall, seemed to be afraid at first. However, after a little time, it emerged from its hiding place to say hello, and people are just in love!
The meerkat is a small carnivoran in the mongoose family. 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 there can be 50 or more members in the super-family. In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12–14 years, and about half this in the wild.
Meerkats babysit the young in the group. Females that have never produced offspring of their own often lactate to feed the alpha pair’s young and they also protect the young from threats, often endangering their own lives.
The babysitter takes the young underground to safety and is prepared to defend them if the danger follows.
Meerkat learns by observing and mimicking adult behavior, though adults also engage in active instruction. For example, meerkat adults teach their pups how to eat a venomous scorpion. They remove the stinger to help the pup and teach them how to handle the creature.
Meerkats sometimes kill young members of their group. Subordinate meerkats have been seen killing the offspring of more senior members in order to improve their own offspring’s position.
Meerkats become sexually mature at about two years of age and can have one to four pups in a litter, with three pups being the most common litter size. The pups leave the burrow when they are two to three weeks old.
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