The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Suricate

(Suricata suricata), a predatory mammal of the family Viverridae. The head and body length is about 35 cm; the lightly furred tail measures about 25 cm in length. The hairs are sparse and shaggy. The back and sides are marked with rows of spots or with indistinct whitish and brown transverse bands.

The suricate is found in the desert regions of southern Africa. It is active during the day. The mammal lives in colonies in burrows that it digs itself. It often lives amid colonies of ground squirrels. The suricate resembles a suslik in the way it stands still and whistles when alarmed. The diet consists of insects and small vertebrates. A litter of two to four young is born each year.

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References in periodicals archive

Go and experience all the romance, all the adventure of the early safari expeditions but with style and be part of something magical at the Suricate Kalahari Tented Lodge.

Go on! Take a piece of the Kalahari desert

The first suricate noted to have clinical signs had enlarged cervical lymph nodes when it emigrated to the study site.

Acid-fast bacteria were detected on Ziehl-Neelsen-stained impression smears, and Mycobacterium species were isolated from both banded mongooses and the suricate specimens.

Because the lesions in the mongooses and the suricate were disseminated, the route of infection is not clean However, an oral route of infection is suspected because the pulmonary lesions involved the interstitium and alveolar walls rather than the bronchioles, and mesenteric but not pulmonary lymph nodes were enlarged (banded mongoose).

We describe outbreaks of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a human pathogen, in free-ranging banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) in Botswana and suricates (Suricats suricatta) in South Africa.

Twelve troops of free-living suricates were monitored daily by behavioral ecologists from the universities of Cambridge and Pretoria (6).

In the suricates, the epizootic occurred from October 1998 to December 1999, after an unknown infected male joined a study group consisting of 5 adult suricates and 15 pups.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis: an emerging disease of free-ranging wildlife. (Research)

For the uninitiated, meerkats (aka suricates) are matriarchal lemur-like South African mongeese whose habit of alertly standing on two legs for long periods of time gives them a cuteness that no amount of intra-species warfare can completely dispel.

Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins