Laelaps
Musings on evolution, the fossil record, and our place in nature
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Laelaps is the blog of freelance science writer Brian Switek. This blog frequently features his musings on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. Switek also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking, and he is a research associate at the New Jersey State Museum.
Switek's first book, Written in Stone, will be published on November 1, 2010 by Bellevue Literary Press.
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Photo of the Day #814: Meerkats
Category: Mammals • Photography
Posted on: January 5, 2010 5:32 AM, by Brian Switek
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Comments
So in South Africa, I spent about four hours with a meerkat scientist called Grant McIlwraith, tracking wild meerkats. Grant was very against keeping meerkats in captivity (although he admitted that he's got an emotional bias here). His reasons were:
1) Their wild range is much, much wider than anything they'd get in captivity. They constantly swap burrows over a massive area.
2) They eat insects and other arthropods, but zoos often feed them on a mongoose diet, so things like chicken. They tend to get really, really fat.
3) They often show delinquent behaviour as evidenced by the fact that they continue to make juvenile calls well into adulthood.
Very sad stuff.
Posted by: Ed Yong | January 5, 2010 8:47 AM