China News Service, August 15. According to Taiwan's United News Network, the meerkat family in the children's animal area of the Taipei Municipal Zoo is full of vitality and lovely interaction. However, the park revealed that the meerkat family has hidden rules of group life, and there were male meerkats. The leader "goes out" and asks the veterinarian to see a doctor. After returning home, "the world is in chaos". It turns out that the male meerkat, who coveted the leader's status, took the opportunity to usurp the throne and provoked the leader to fight.
The zoo said that in each meerkat group, there will be a male and a female leader, and only the leader has the right to reproduce.
If there is no respect for the leader in the family, excessive eating and weight gain, secret reproduction and pregnancy, etc., the meerkat that makes the leader feel the danger of usurping the throne will be threatened by the leader, and may even be driven away by the family.
The zoo said that once a male meerkat leader "went out" for a veterinarian to see a doctor, but when he returned home, he found that "the world is in chaos". It turned out that the male meerkat, who coveted the leader's status, took the opportunity to usurp the throne and provoked the leader to fight. The conservationists considered the animals. The balance between security and ethnicity, and quickly isolated the meerkats who were trying to seize power, and then maintained the peace of the original family.
After careful evaluation and observation by the caregivers, the lone meerkat was mixed with other groups that were willing to accept it.
The zoo said that, in addition, meerkat will distinguish its own "meerkat" by smell. It is difficult for meerkat baby meerkat to return to the arms of the family after artificial feeding, because it smells different and is rejected by the original family.
In this case, caregivers will smear the expelled individual with bedding that is contaminated with the glands of the mother meerkat, so that the individual smells less obtrusive, and the meerkat family is more tolerant of the baby, and soon successfully integrates into the family.
According to the zoo, there are currently more than 10 meerkat groups in the park, and the number of meerkats in each group ranges from a large family of 8 to a small group of 2.
Most of the ethnic groups are blood-related family members. In order to show the natural life style of meerkats, the garden will also arrange individual mixed groups.
A meerkat group with more members can construct a relatively sound division of labor and social behavior, which can increase the behavioral diversity of each meerkat, and at the same time, a large family can reduce the pressure caused by various disturbances.
The zoo said that it is not so easy to join the meerkat family. You can often see meerkats grooming each other, chasing and playing, and warning humans together in the children's animal area. To ensure the territory and resources of your own ethnic group, it is also relatively exclusive and has strict rules of living together.