I love (van der) Meerkats. These were half/tame and used in Rockstock Ritz (near Solitaire) Namibia to clean the rooms of snakes and scorpions which they eat for breakfast! They smell scorpions deep underneath stones and can make a deep hole searching them in seconds. The one with the short tail is called “Stompie” Afrikaans for short (refering to its short tail). We adored letting them out during a long walk together with the dogs. Are you going there? Please tell the owner his dears are on YouTube. Greetings from Jan van der Meer(kat) (we have loads more HDV stockshots footage)

Meerkat” is an English loan word from Afrikaans. The name itself came from Dutch but by misidentification. In Dutch meerkat (as Meerkatze in German) means guenon, a monkey of the Cercopithecus genus which possibly derives from Sanskrit markata (monkey). The traders of the Dutch East India Company were likely familiar with such animals, but the Dutch settlers attached the name to the wrong animal at the Cape. In Dutch the name for the suricate is stokstaartje (”little stick-tail”).

According to African popular belief (mainly in the Zambian/Zimbabwean region), the meerkat is also known as the sun angel, as it protects villages from the moon devil or the werewolf which is believed to attack stray cattle or lone tribesmen.

By: GlobalDVC

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Tags: Meerkats Manor Stokstaartjes Cute Namibia Solitaire Snakes Scorpions

Uploaded: December 29, 2006

Length: 02:5