Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jeanette X
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ihach
youd be more special if i got my goddamn tiger thread  |
I already did a thread about wild cats! JEEZ! |
Dwarf Mongoose (
Helogale parvula)
Baby dwarf mongooses.
Dwarf mongoose in a mug.
The dwarf mongoose lives in Ethiopia, Angola, and South Africa, and is the smallest African carivore. They have a complicated social group in which an older female is the dominant, and her mate is the second dominant. All females are dominant over males. The dominant female and her mate are the only breeders in the group, nevertheless, other females will nurse her babies and care for them. They often use termite mounds as dens, lookout posts, and sources of food. They primarily eat insects, but they have been known to kill and eat snakes in a group effort. They break open bird eggs to eat by holding the egg between their paws and throwing them between their back feet onto a rock. They hunt in semi-nomadic packs and vocalize with whistles and twittering noises, and will growl when angered. They are watchful for predators, and have a complex system of vigilance in which they make different vocalizations for different predators to warn the pack and they relieve each other of guard duty in a regular sequence.
Dwarf mongooses have an interesting symbiotic relationship with a couple species of hornbills in eastern Kenya. In this relationship, hornbills give out warning calls when a predatory bird is in close proximity (even if it is a predator to just the mongooses). Since hornbills eat the same food as mongooses, they benefit from the relationship because the mongoose does all the foraging. Hornbills rarely compete for food with the mongooses and will usually submit to them anyhow. The hornbills and dwarf mongooses wait for each other to begin foraging; if no mongooses are present, the hornbill will call down the den to wake them up. If no hornbills are present, the mongoose will display stress and decreased efficiency of foraging (Postanowicz). (
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/v...03/rizi/SC.htm)
Linear Mode
