Kalahari Meerkats

Standing tall at only one foot high, the meerkat is a small member of the mongoose family that thrives in one of the driest places on Earth, the Kalahari Desert. Observing each individual meerkat go about their daily business of survival, against the magnificent backdrop of the Southern Kalahari, has made it impossible to project our human attitudes and emotions onto each of these little yet, larger than life, characters. Here follows a brief description of each of the ten meerkats that make up the Gosa gang:

Cleopatra is the alpha female of the Gosa gang, she is a serene presence. Whether she is a strong enough character to maintain her status as the alpha female and hold the gang together? The dominant male by her side is Gandalf. He is inevitably the one who takes on the responsibility of sentry duty, risking life and limb to get as high as possible to scan for both aerial and ground predators. Delilah - an extremely nervous beta female but she has everything to make up a new gang and to become an alpha. Dingaan – a prominent beta male in the gang, he is Gandalf’s right hand. He is a strong and good-looking meerkat, and no doubt he will have designs on becoming an alpha male someday.

Brutus and Napoleon are two beta males. We have often noticed them sneaking off, quite rapidly, from the burrow in the early morning, resulting in a split in the gang for the day’s foraging. They do not always spend the night in the same burrow as the rest of the gang either. Starsky is the youngest member of the gang, he is a real character; full of life, extremely curious and rather mischievous. Hutch is older than Starsky, but not quite at full maturity, he has displayed a level-headedness beyond his years and is a born leader. He has, however, also made it clear that he is higher up the chain of command than Starsky and the two younger females (Matimba and Priscilla), and has never hesitated to put any of them in their place should they ever get a little too cheeky.

Matimba is one of the two younger females in the group and even at her tender age, she shows signs of having a real maternal and caring nature. Priscilla, as her name suggests, is a bit of a princess, both in her behaviour and her appearance. She likes to team up with Matimba and then gang up on Starsky when it’s time for the late afternoon ‘roll in the sand’. How she copes with the onset of adulthood and potential responsibilities that come with it will be interesting to observe.

This is an epic series of tiny proportions. From family quarrels, to love affairs, to life threatening situations – these cute and cuddly animals rarely have a dull moment! Stay tuned to witness the unfolding stories of these characters that make up the Gosa meerkat gang.