Quite cute and harmless: These meerkats in the Kalahari desert are brushed on riot. They are trying to drive a rival group of meerkats out of their territory through a synchronous “war dance”.
Meerkats are very social – within their group. Their colonies of up to 30 animals live together in caves they have dug themselves, raise their young together and keep watch over them. The individual colony members even recognize each other by the voice.
But as social as the meerkats are towards their clan members – they have no pardon for strangers. If a rival meerkat group invades their territory, they show a pronounced aggression. The local meerkats often try to drive the invaders away through a war dance. The animals straighten up on their hind legs, fluff up their fur and trudge towards their rivals in an almost synchronous formation.
This photo shows a group of meerkats in the Kalahari doing such a war dance. This impressive performance is often enough to scare off the opponents, so that there is no fight at all, as biologists from the Kalahari Meerkat Project observed. Fighting only occurred in nine percent of the cases, and at least one meerkat was killed.
“Although this aggression between groups rarely leads to animal killing, it is important for meerkats to win such clashes – only then will they keep their territory,” said Mark Dyble of the University of Cambridge. “In the hostile semi-desert of the Kalahari, good territory is crucial for the survival of the group and its long-term success.”