Meerkats

Meerkats live in a matriarchal society (female in charge) with large groups of up to 40 individuals. Only the dominant pair have breeding rights.

They weigh just 25 grams at birth, and 600gms - 1kg when fully mature. Females are slightly larger than males. When standing upright, adult meerkats stand between 25 and 30cm tall.

In the wild meerkats can live up to 8 years, and up to 13 years in captivity.

Meerkats currently face no major threats and their population trend is considered stable. Natural predators include eagles, falcons and large carnivores such as jackals.

With a well developed sentry system, where the adults take turns to stand guard of the mob. The sentry climbs to a high point and stands as tall as possible on its hind legs to get the best view of the area. The sentry makes various different vocalisations to inform the mob if all is well, or if a threat is detected. They have different calls for different predators – ones on land, or ones coming from the sky. When the alarm call is raised, all the meerkats will flee to one of their many bolt holes to hide.

Meerkats are active during the day and use burrows to sleep in at night and shelter during the extreme heat of the day. Burrows have on average 15 entry and exit points and can be up to two metres deep. Underground, the tunnels have separate sleeping and toileting chambers.

Our five meerkats arrived from Taronga Zoo, NSW in September 2021.  The mob, or gang, is made up of brothers Lwazi, Moagi, Savuti, Ntsumi and Nzima.

Want to know more about these cheeky members of the zoo? then follow this link for information on our keeper talks and animal feeding times or book into an encounter by following the link below.  

Distribution and habitat	Deserts and grasslands of south western Africa, including Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Angola.
Conservation status*  * Classified by IUCN	Least concern
Population	500,000
Diet	Mainly insects but will also eat spiders, snails, small rodents, eggs, lizards and scorpions. Meerkats can kill and eat venomous snakes.

Would you like to meet our meerkats? Book an encounter by clicking on the link here.