Banded Mongoose (Mungos mungo)

The Banded Mongoose where very disconcerted and confused when I went and sat down amongst them.

But after a while must have thought me a piece of wood or something as they just carried on foraging. LOL!!

The younger one did stop to lick his lips. I don’t know if that was from the insect he was dreaming of finding but he was looking at me with that glint in his eye. LOL!!

 

 
A smallish animal about 55cm in total length, with tail about half this length. Tails are usually about 60% of the length of head and body.

Banded Mongoose are easy to distinguish by the 12 or so black lines on the upper part of its back towards the tail.

Males weigh about 1.3kg, females about 1.4kg.

 
When danger threatens, they will freeze, raise on their back legs while balancing on their tail, to look around.

If the danger is real, mongoose will quickly disappear down nearby holes, into hollow logs or dug out termite mounds.

Bird’s eggs are held between the front paws and hurled between the back ones onto a rock or other hard object until broken then the yolk eaten out of the shell.

Found in northern regions of SA as well as a narrow strip down towards the Natal coast, they do not occur in desert areas.

These are a species only seen during the daylight hours and as soon as it starts to get dark, disappear into their burrows.

Food consists of insects, grubs, millipedes, snails, small reptiles, eggs of birds, spiders, frogs and wild fruit. Larger prey such as mice are jumped upon, held down by paws and torn apart to be eaten in small pieces.

They have 5 digits on the front feet and 4 on back. The first digit on front is small and situated at the side of the planter pad but armed with an unusually large curved claw about 8mm across the curve. The other 4 digits on the front have long, sharply curved claws up to about 20mm long.

They can be found in a wide variety of habitats including savannah, forests and woodlands.

Info: Unique Facts about Wildlife in South Africa (Joan Young)