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Meerkat
At Victoria, Australia
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Herpestidae
Genus:	Suricata Desmarest, 1804
Species:	S. suricatta
Binomial name
Suricata suricatta (Schreber, 1776)
Meerkat range

The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members. In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12–14 years, and about half this in the wild.

Name[link]

"Meerkat" is a loanword from Afrikaans. The name has a Dutch origin but by misidentification. Dutch meerkat refers to the "guenon", a monkey of the Cercopithecus genus. The word "meerkat" is Dutch for "lake cat", but the suricata is not in the cat family, and neither suricatas nor guenons are attracted to lakes; the word possibly started as a Dutch adaptation of a derivative of Sanskrit markaţa मर्कट = "monkey", perhaps in Africa via an Indian sailor on board a Dutch East India Company ship. The traders of the Dutch East India Company were likely familiar with monkeys, but the Dutch settlers attached the name to the wrong animal at the Cape. The suricata is called stokstaartje = "little stick-tail" in Dutch.

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.

Anatomy[link]

Skull and dentition, as illustrated in Gervais' Histoire naturelle des mammifères

The meerkat is a small diurnal herpestid (mongoose) weighing on average about 731 grams (1.61 lb) for males and 720 grams (1.6 lb) for females. Its long slender body and limbs give it a body length of 25 to 35 centimetres (9.8 to 14 in) and an added tail length of 17 to 25 centimetres (6.7 to 9.8 in). Its tail is not bushy like all other mongoose species, but is rather long and thin and tapers to a black or reddish colored pointed tip. The meerkat uses its tail to balance when standing upright, as well as for signaling. Its face tapers, coming to a point at the nose, which is brown. The eyes always have black patches around them and it has small black crescent-shaped ears that can close to exclude soil when digging. Like cats, meerkats have binocular vision, a large peripheral range, depth perception, and eyes on the front of their faces.

At the end of each of a meerkat's "fingers" is a non-retractable, strong, 2 centimetres (0.79 in) long, curved claw used for digging burrows and digging for prey. Claws are also used with muscular hindlegs to help climb trees. Meerkats have four toes on each foot and long slender limbs. The coat is usually fawn-colored peppered with gray, tan, or brown with a silver tint. They have short parallel stripes across their backs, extending from the base of the tail to the shoulders. The patterns of stripes are unique to each meerkat. The underside of the meerkat has no markings, but the belly has a patch which is only sparsely covered with hair and shows the black skin underneath. The meerkat uses this area to absorb heat while standing on its rear legs, usually early in the morning after cold desert nights.

A meerkat, standing on its hind legs, looks around at Ueno Zoo in Japan.

Diet and foraging behaviour[link]

Meerkat killing an elephant shrew, as illustrated in Brehm's Life of Animals

Meerkats showing foraging behavior at the Adelaide Zoo.

Meerkat in Namibia eating a frog

Meerkats are primarily insectivores, but also eat lizards, snakes, scorpions, spiders, plants, eggs, small mammals, millipedes, centipedes and, more rarely, small birds. Meerkats are immune to certain types of venom; they are immune to the very strong venom of the scorpions of the Kalahari Desert, unlike humans.^[2] They have no excess body fat stores, so foraging for food is a daily need.

Meerkats forage in a group with one "sentry" on guard watching for predators while the others search for food. Sentry duty is usually approximately an hour long.A meerkat can dig through a quantity of sand equal to its own weight in just seconds.^[3] Baby meerkats do not start foraging for food until they are about 1 month old, and do so by following an older member of the group who acts as the pup's tutor.^[4] The meerkat standing guard makes peeping sounds when all is well. If the meerkat spots danger, it barks loudly or whistles.

Reproduction[link]

A meerkat in the Kalahari Desert

Meerkats become sexually mature at about one year of age and can have one to five pups in a litter, with three pups being the most common litter size. Wild meerkats may have up to four litters per year. Meerkats are iteroparous and can reproduce any time of the year but most births occur in the warmer seasons. The pups are allowed to leave the burrow at three weeks old. When the pups are ready to emerge from the burrow, the whole clan of meerkats will stand around the burrow to watch. Some of the adolescents might try to show off so they can have more attention than the pups.

There is no precopulatory display; the male ritually grooms the female until she submits to him and copulation begins, the male generally adopting a seated position during the act. Gestation lasts approximately 11 weeks and the young are born within the underground burrow and are altricial (undeveloped). The young's ears open at about 15 days of age, and their eyes at 10–14 days. They are weaned around 49 to 63 days. They do not come above ground until at least 21 days of age and stay with babysitters near the burrow. After another week or so, they join the adults on a foraging party.

Usually, the alpha pair reserves the right to mate and normally kills any young not its own, to ensure that its offspring has the best chance of survival. The dominant couple may also evict, or kick out the mothers of the offending offspring.

New meerkat groups are often formed by evicted females pairing with roving males.

If the members of the alpha group are relatives (this tends to happen when the alpha female dies and is succeeded by a daughter), they do not mate with each other and reproduction is by group females stray-mating with roving males from other groups; in this situation, pregnant females tend to kill and eat any pups born to other females.

Behavior[link]

Meerkat standing on rear legs

At Auckland Zoo

Meerkats are small burrowing animals, living in large underground networks with multiple entrances which they leave only during the day. They are very social, living in colonies averaging 20–30 members. Animals in the same group regularly groom each other to strengthen social bonds. The alpha pair often scent-mark subordinates of the group to express their authority, and this is usually followed by the subordinates grooming the alphas and licking their faces. This behavior is also usually practiced when group members are reunited after a short period apart. Most meerkats in a group are all siblings or offspring of the alpha pair.

Meerkats demonstrate altruistic behavior within their colonies; one or more meerkats stand sentry while others are foraging or playing, to warn them of approaching dangers. When a predator is spotted, the meerkat performing as sentry gives a warning bark, and other members of the gang will run and hide in one of the many bolt holes they have spread across their territory. The sentry meerkat is the first to reappear from the burrow and search for predators, constantly barking to keep the others underground. If there is no threat, the sentry meerkat stops signaling and the others feel safe to emerge.

Meerkats also babysit the young in the group. Females that have never produced offspring of their own often lactate to feed the alpha pair's young, while the alpha female is away with the rest of the group. They also protect the young from threats, often endangering their own lives. On warning of danger, the babysitter takes the young underground to safety and is prepared to defend them if the danger follows. If retreating underground is not possible, she collects all young together and lies on top of them.

Meerkats are also known to share their burrow with the Yellow Mongoose and ground squirrel, species with which they do not compete for resources. If they are unlucky, sometimes they share their burrow with snakes.

Like many species, meerkat young learn by observing and mimicking adult behaviour though adults also engage in active instruction. For example, meerkat adults teach their pups how to eat a venomous scorpion: they will remove the stinger and help the pup learn how to handle the creature.^[5]

Despite this altruistic behaviour, meerkats sometimes kill young members of their group. Subordinate meerkats have been seen killing the offspring of more senior members in order to improve their own offspring's position.^[6]

Meerkats have been known to engage in social activities, including what appear to be wrestling matches and foot races.

Vocalization[link]

Meerkat calls may carry specific meanings, with particular calls indicating the type of predator and the urgency of the situation. In addition to alarm calls, meerkats also make panic calls, recruitment calls, and moving calls. They chirrup, trill, growl, or bark, depending on the circumstances.^[7] Meerkats make different alarm calls depending upon whether they see an aerial or a terrestrial predator. Moreover, acoustic characteristics of the call will change with the urgency of the potential predatory episode. Therefore six different predatory alarm calls with six different meanings have been identified: aerial predator with low, medium, and high urgency; and terrestrial predator with low, medium, and high urgency. Meerkats respond differently after hearing a terrestrial predator alarm call than after hearing an aerial predator alarm call. For example, upon hearing a high-urgency terrestrial predator alarm call, meerkats are most likely to seek shelter and scan the area. On the other hand, upon hearing a high-urgency aerial predator alarm call, meerkats are most likely to crouch down. On many occasions under these circumstances, they also look towards the sky. ^[8]

Meerkat groups[link]

Group at Zoo Basel

A meerkat group may die out because of predator attack, its alpha pair being unable to breed, starvation due to drought, or epidemic disease.

A new meerkat group often arises from evicted females meeting and staying with roving males, seeking to mate. The litter size is usually 2–5 pups.

Meerkat Family in Stuttgart Zoo Wilhelma

The size of the groups is variable. A group which becomes over-large may routinely have to disperse widely to find enough food when foraging. As a result, when suddenly needing to run for shelter, members of the group may choose different holes, resulting in the group fissioning.

Subspecies[link]

There are three subspecies of meerkat:^[9]

• Suricata suricatta siricata
• Suricata suricatta majoriae
• Suricata suricatta iona

Domestication[link]

Meerkats make very poor pets. They can be aggressive especially toward guests and may bite. They will scent-mark their owner and the house (their "territory"). ^[10][11]

See also[link]

• Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term research project
• The Meerkats, a 2008 documentary feature film

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• David Macdonald (Photography by Nigel Dennis): Meerkats. London: New Holland Publishers, 1999.
• Meerkat pups go to eating school BBC News, 13 July 2006.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Suricata suricatta

Wikispecies has information related to: Suricata suricatta

• Animal Diversity – Meerkat, University of Michigan
• Meerkat enquiries on the increase – BBC Nottingham

Aleksandr Orlov (Russian: Александр Орлов) is a fictional CGI anthropomorphic Russian meerkat. He is portrayed as being of aristocratic stock, and the founder of www.comparethemeerkat.com. The character is central to an advertising campaign on British commercial television for comparethemarket.com, a price comparison website. It launched in January 2009 and centres on his frustration that people keep coming to his website looking for car insurance, not meerkats, because 'Market' sounds similar to 'Meerkat' when spoken in a Russian accent.

Orlov's catchphrase is 'Simples', pronounced 'Seem-pels'. He, and the other meerkat characters, were brought to life by the award-winning Darren Walsh at Passion Pictures, who designed the characters and directs the commercials and television appearances.

Life and family[link]

Aleksandr's fictional family is described as having lived in Moscow for many generations. His "greatest grandfather", Vitaly, fought in the Meerkat–Mongoose war of the 1850s, and his grandparents survived the "Furry Terror" of 1921. Aleksandr's father Papa Anton participates in boxing.

A series of advertisements have shown Aleksandr and his assistant Sergei act out his ancestors' journeys:

• The first (The Journey of Courageousness) shows him acting as an ancestor of Aleksandr, living in the Kalahari Desert, dressed in Arab robes, until a drought causes a famine and forces him to leave; he is shown walking across a sand dune desert (perhaps the Namib Desert) to a coast, where he makes or finds a boat, and sails away in it, and ends up on a cold coast of Russia.
• The second (The Battle of Fearlessness) shows Aleksandr as "Great Granddaddy Vitaly" in the Ural Mountains with an army of meerkats. He is shown dressed in 19th-century clothes. An army of mongooses commanded by "Mongis Khan" arrives and the two armies fight. Vitaly's army wins the battle, with the mongoose army dispersing.
• Lastly, the final part (The Streets of Ambitiousness) shows him acting as his Papa Anton, starting his career with 'Compare the Meerkat.cart', which does not fare best. To survive he is forced to compare muskrats, showing an image to a muskrat in a dingy alley (a muskrat website was created containing "uncensored images of muskrats"). Finally, Papa Anton opens 'Compare the Meerkat.shop', a store on the streets of Moscow.

According to an interview with Aleksandr's designer and director; Darren Walsh at Passion Pictures, Aleksandr became a billionaire in the 1970s. He lives in Moscow, although he apparently also owns a large mansion in South London. He now spends his time on vanity projects such as his website, numerous self-portraits, various petitions (whether it be banning 'comparethemuskrat.com' or beating Sergei at Scrabble by adding a word to the dictionary), and epic film-making (mostly starring himself and Sergei).

Aleksandr stated in an interview on his official Facebook that he is not married and has no children, despite having many marriage proposals.^[1]

Television ads[link]

At the end of each advertisement Aleksandr has two boards with "comparethemeerkat.com" and "comparethemarket.com" and he says "For comparing meerkats come to 'comparethemeerkat.com', for cheap car insurance 'comparethemarket.com'." Then he says his catchphrase, "Simples" followed by a squeak.

• "My First TV Ad" (January 2009) - Introducing Aleksandr.
• "Jingles" (February 2009) - Aleksandr shows the differences in the Compare the Market and Meerkat jingles.
• "Sergei" (April 2009) - A new computer server managed by Sergei from IT.
• "Puppets" (July 2009) - Aleksandr's puppet theatre.
• "Jacuzzi" (October 2009) - A relaxing jacuzzi after another day of meerkat and car insurance confusion.
• "The Journey of Courageousness" (January 2010) - The first part of the "Orlov Family History Trilogy", Aleksandr tells the story of his ancestor's journey to Russia from the Kalahari, from where he and some other meerkats fled by sea from a grub famine. In the Kalahari he is depicted as wearing an Arab robe.
• "Art Class" (March 2010) - A reminder from Aleksandr about his ancestor's journey across oceans.
• "The Battle of Fearlessness" (April 2010) - The second part of the "Orlov Family History Trilogy", Aleksandr tells the story of his "Great Granddaddy Vitaly's" victory over a Mongolian mongoose army commanded by "Mongis Khan" in the Ural Mountains.
• "The Streets of Ambitiousness" (July 2010) - The final part of the family trilogy. It shows Papa Anton's struggles comparing meerkats on the streets of Moscow.
• "Meerkovo" (January 2011) - a Russian village inhabited by meerkats. Filmed in Kersey, Suffolk.^[2]
• "Choir" (April 2011) - The Choir of meerpups at the Meerkovo school sing a special song (to the tune of 'Wheels on the Bus)
• "Tough decision" (January 2012) - Aleksandr gives Sergei a laptop so he can work 24/7. Filmed at Lullingstone Castle
• "Sick Sergei" (March 2012)- Sergei is seen being ran urgently through the corridors of a hospital, probably as a result of 'Tough Decision' and his thoughts about Compare the Market comparing credit cards are heard running through his head. Aleksandr is seen in still images, calling out to him, 'Sergi! Come back!'. Sergei then wakes up to see a very stern-looking Aleksandr at the foot of his bed telling him 'You're four days late for work!'

Meerkat friends[link]

Sergei[link]

Recently another character, Sergei, appeared in his own ad. He is Aleksandr's IT technician, tea-maker and sidekick. Before working for Aleksandr, he used to be head of the principal design group for the Soviet Space Programme during the 1980s. He designed the Meer(kat) Space Station, and now works with Aleksandr and 'Compare the Meerkat'. Sergei is first seen in the ad "Sergei", and later guests in "Jacuzzi", "Art Class" and all three of the 'Orlov Family Trilogy' advertisements. Sergei had been frequently mentioned on Aleksandr's Twitter and Facebook accounts, one time was prior to being included in an advert, and Aleksandr even started a petition to add the word 'Simples' to the dictionary because Sergei didn't approve of the word in a game of Scrabble.^[3]

Other meerkats[link]

The 2011 campaign focuses on a Russian village named Meerkovo, which is in danger because of the confusion over Comparethemeerkat.com and Comparethemarket.com - featuring several inhabitants of the town complaining. New characters have been introduced for this campaign which have been designed by Darren Walsh:

• Vassily - a regular at the Queasy Mongoose pub.
• Maiya - a teacher at the Meerkovo School
• Meerpup students - the class at the Meerkovo School (some have been named - one is called Bogdan and another Peter)
• Yakov - the toy maker.

One of the recent ads, from April 2011, features the Meerkovo School pupils singing a song to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus. Here are the lyrics:

"Compare the market makes us frown, makes us frown, makes us frown, Compare the market ruined our town, all day long!

There is also a website promoting Meerkovo. It shows a map of the town, where people can take a look inside Aleksandr's Mansion, The Care home for older meerkats, the Meerkovo School, Yakov's Toy Shop and the local pub, the Queasy Mongoose. People can also take a quiz on the town.

Background[link]

Orlov's voice is provided by Simon Greenall.^[4]

The TV campaign, featuring Aleksandr, was created by the VCCP Agency on behalf of BGL Group. The website – which is a real website created by the advertising agency – does indeed allow visitors to compare meerkats, and has more than 2 million hits per month ^[5]

In August 2009 an opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper accused the advert series of racism for mocking Eastern European accents. However, the Advertising Standards Authority, following a complaint by the author of the article, stated that it had not received any similar complaints.^[6]

Aleksandr Orlov, and the other characters, have been brought to life and designed by Darren Walsh at Passion Pictures. Darren Walsh has directed all of the television and cinema commercials featuring Aleksandr Orlov. Darren Walsh has won several awards for his work in designing and directing the Aleksandr Orlov commercials.

On October 28, 2010 Aleksandr had his first television interview on the ITV show Daybreak.^[7]

Commercial success[link]

BGL's comparethemarket.com website is now ranked as the 4th most visited insurance website in the UK – up from 16th in January 2008; and overall sales have more than doubled year on year as a result of the TV ‘meerkat campaign’.^[8][9] As of August 2009^[update], Aleksandr had more than 700,000 Facebook fans and 22,000 followers on Twitter, while on photo-sharing site Flickr there is a popular gallery of Aleksandr's family, described as 'a marker of the tragic state of humanity'.^[10]

The character remains extremely popular and a record company has expressed an interest in releasing a single featuring Aleksandr.^[11]

Merchandise[link]

Book[link]

Orlov's "autobiography" was released on 28 October 2010, entitled "A Simples Life: The Life and Times of Aleksandr Orlov".^[12] The book generated more pre-orders than that of other books released at the same time including Tony Blair's memoirs and more than double the pre-orders of Cheryl Cole's, Russell Brand's and Danii Minogue's autobiographies.^[13] The book was published by Ebury Publishing and the autobiography reached #2 on the Amazon UK website on its first week of sale in October 2010.^[14]

Downloads[link]

There are several downloads available on the website such as wallpapers, ringtones, text alerts, voicemail messages and some commercial videos. A branded iPhone application is also available for iPhone users, containing background information, an extensive database of English phrases in "meerkat" pronunciation (created from audio clips from the TV Ads), a mongoose "detector", and a collection of some of the videos produced by Aleksandr.

Plush toys[link]

Toys incarnating the meerkats in plush form have been produced. From July 2011, any customer who purchases car, home or pet insurance via the Compare the Market website will receive a plush toy.^[15] Customers will receive one out of six meerkat characters: Aleksandr, Sergei, Vassily, Maiya, Yakov and Bogdan have been made.

See also[link]

• Darren Walsh
• Orlov (surname)
• Monkey advertising character, another popular anthropomorphic animal used in British advertising on products such as PG Tips and ITV Digital.
• GEICO gecko, Cockney-accented character in a similar campaign for GEICO insurance in the United States since 1999.

References[link]