Many parents are proud of their newborn babies. Some of them are even afraid to take them out and show them to others with the fear that their kids would be taken away from them. More than humans, this trait can be observed in animals and here we are going to show you the proud parents of a newly born Meerkat family.
Japanese photographer mamekoro51 is a great fan of nature and his hobby is taking pictures of baby animals. He recently went to Inokashira Natural Cultural Park in Musashino City, Tokyo and he was startled by the sight of an adorable Meerkat family. He wanted to photograph them badly but the only difficulty was that they didn’t come out at first.
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He saw a little Meerkat peeping behind a wall and didn’t bother to come out for long. However, when he finally did, everyone around immediately fell in love with the sight as he was too much adorable.
So, for those of you who don’t know about Meerkats, they are small carnivores in the mongoose family. They can mainly be seen in all parts of Kalahari dessert in Bostwana, in Namib desert in Nambia and Southwestern Angola and also in South Africa.
Source: Wikipedia
A group of meerkats is called a “mob”, “gang” or “clan”. A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members. 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.
On warning of danger, the babysitter takes the young underground to safety and is prepared to defend them if the danger follows.
Like many species, meerkat young learn 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 will remove the stinger and help the pup learn how to handle the creature.
Despite this altruistic behavior, 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 are allowed to leave the burrow at two to three weeks old.
Inokashira Park Zoo is located in a quiet and distinctive suburb of Tokyo. It exhibits a variety of Japanese species and contributes to the conservation and breeding of Japanese squirrels, mandarin ducks, and swans. The park also comprises a pond, a botanical garden and Seibo Kitamura (Japanese sculptor) Museum.
Other animals at the zoo include Asiatic elephants, rhesus monkeys, raccoons, fennecs, Japanese serows, Japanese martens, masked palm civets, Amur cats, raccoon dogs, Japanese squirrels, red-crowned cranes, Japanese birds, tropical birds, mandarin ducks and swans.
