During
my stay in the Kalahari Meerkat
project with Earthwatch, I took
many mini-movies, with the movie function of my digicam. Resolution is
thus aweful (and still made worse by YouTube), and the camera's noise
while focusing is nerve-racking
(you'll note the clicking...). But still, the first two movies show
little bits
of the meerkats' and our days, whereas the others are some originals,
partly including sound.
Please click on the grey arrows in the
pictures below, and enjoy!
For many more pictures, see my Picture
Gallery. Please
note that all pictures and videos depicting meerkats, yellow mongooses
and
associated birds are strictly subject to copyright by the Kalahari
Meerkat Project; please contact meif you want
to use them for other than private, non-commercial purposes.
The Kalahari meerkats' day
... and the volunteer's day
Meerkat
days are just packed...
You'll see Lazuli getting up and grooming,
Moomins playfighting, Young Ones foraging. The unexperienced Commandos
pup Drew digs for nothing, while Lazuli's Franny and Moomins' Hemulen
clean and devour their millipedes. It's then Moomins' Granpa Grumble's
turn as a sentinel, while the Elveera's predator alarm is for real. The
afternoon starts quietly with foraging - a Commandos subadult
alone, then a Gattaca helper with pup, then a Commandos "helper" who
perfers to eat his food to sharing. But then, both Young Ones and
Whiskers evict a female (is it Tosca?), followed by two Intergroup
Interactions: Lazuli closely monitoring Whisker's Youssarian, and
Whiskers fighting two Lazuli rovers. The day ends with intense grooming
sessions of Lazuli and Commandos...
... but
also a volunteer's day is not always easy!
You'll see how hard it can be to weigh one (and only one) meerkat -
featuring Lazuli, Commandos and Moomins. Then comes a Moomin trying to
eat my shoe. Next is the dyeing scene with Lazuli. Most of the day is
spent with focals (first a foraging focal, then an ad lib focal
monitoring a Lazuli predator alarm). And last but not least my hat is
taken for a termite mound...
Digging & eating
Cazanna (Lazuli dominant female)
Hemulen (Moomins subadult) &
Millipede
Cazanna,
Lazuli's
dominant female, digging for a beetle. Dominant and other experienced
meerkats do shorter and more successful digs, often focussing on bigger
prey.
Hemulen,
a
Moomins' subadult meerkat, cleaning and devouring a millipede.
Millipedes develop a poisonous coating when exposed to sunlight - so
the kats "clean" them before eating, by dragging them across the sand
with their forelegs to rub the coating off.
Helper
with young pup (Gattaca)
Patriarch
Aragorn & pup Mo (Commandos)
A
"helper"
meerkat with a young pup, of Gattaca mob. The helper digs while the
begging pup waits patiently. Once the prey is found, the pup calls get
excited, and the helper leaves the prey to the pup.
Commandos'
pups were older as Gattaca's - so the dominant male Aragorn left more
of the actual digging experience to the pup Mo.
Helper
no longer helping (Commandos)
Helper
no longer helping cont. (Commandos)
Only
three days later, the Commandos pups seem to be more experienced with
finding food - so this helper actually blocks the pup from the food
source he found.
The
good days are over. Notice the growl the "no-longer-helper" uses to
keep the pup away.
Chores
The Lazuli grooming ball
Sentinel Granpa Grumble (Moomins)
A group
of five Lazuli meerkats grooming.
Granpa
Grumble of the Moomins mob during his sentinel duty, balancing on a
thorny bush. Sentinels often climb elevations to watch out, like
bushes, termite mounds, or researchers.
Digging
& analmarking (Moomins)
More
digging (Whiskers)
A
few Moomins meerkats refurbishing a bolt-hole. First they dig in tandem
to clear the entrance. Once the result passed the inspection by the
dominant female, one meerkat marks the hole as a Moomins possession, by
perfuming the entrance with his anal gland secret.
15 secs
of Whiskers digging, for all Whiskers fans. this is the only relaxed
movie I took with Whiskers, all others are evictions or wardances...
Playfighting
Moomins playfights
More Moomins playfights
Moomins
teenagers playfighting. Moomins played most, of the groups we visited.
Check out this link for more info on
playfighting.
More
Moomins playfights, around my knees. At the end, one surrenders with a
submission pose.
Action
Predator alarm, type "Eagle" (Elveera)
Eviction of Mia Moja (Young Ones)
The
Elveera mob in a predator alarm - reacting to a tiny speck they
identified as an eagle. The eagle came closer (so that also I could see
it), but left again. The whole alarm took ca. 5 minutes.
The
subordinate female Mia Moja, of Young Ones mob, tries to join her
family after an earlier eviction - but not successfully. Her relatives
evict her again, by biting her belly and chasing her away. She had
killed a previous litter. And she was seen later near the burrow with
the newborn Young Ones pups...
IGI:
Lazuli wardancing Yossarian
Sentinel
action
Barely
awake, the sunbathing Lazuli mob is disturbed by the roving Whiskers'
Yossarian. They are alert, but just do some war-dancing and don't
really chase him away - as there is no dominant male in Lazuli. Later,
Yossarian bewitches Cazanna, the dominante female...
... and
here a lot of action for me! Grandpa Grumble of Moomins chooses my
shoulder as his sentinel post. Please note, besides my extra-cool
glasses, his incessant sentinel calls, used to let the others know that
someone is on duty.
