#yellow mongoose

[weasel-war-dance]

Yellow Mongoose | copper

[dopescissorscashwagon]

Yellow Mongoose

DierenPark Amersfoort - The Netherlands

📸 by @mandennophotography

[sitting-on-me-bum]

In a harsh southern African habitat, a small mongoose finds safety in numbers.

One of 34 species of mongoose worldwide, the yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) lives in dry, sandy lands from Namibia to Botswana to northern South Africa. Its home can be merciless: Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, a “peace park” that straddles the border of South Africa and Botswana and where this photo was taken, receives fewer than nine inches of rainfall annually; native peoples called the area “the thirstland.” Temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) by day, then plunge to -11 Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Weighing in at only half a kilogram (just over a pound), yellow mongooses are easy meals for predators, from snakes to jackals to eagles.

Ann & Steve Toon

[mongoosefangs]

I do still make primarily animal/anthro art, btw :) here's a mongoose mask I finished up late last year!

[how2skinatiger]

Yellow Mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) in Pretoria, South Africa

Photos by tjeerd || CC BY-NC 4.0

[critter-creature-or-beast]

Trick or treat!

Happy Halloween! You receive one southern yellow mongoose!

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[columbidaecolours]

The yellow mongoose (cynictis penicillata), also known as the red meerkat, is a member of the mongoose family (who would have thought).

It lives in open country scrubland and grassland in Angolia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

Their conservation status is least concern.

They are carnivores, eating beetles, termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, crickets, and ants. Also on small rodents, amphibians, small birds, reptiles, eggs, grass, and seeds. In urban environments it will also forage in human food garbage.

Its natural predators are birds of prey, snakes, and jackals.

[striped-civet]

Yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata)

Photo © James Tompkins