Is a Meerkat a Rodent? Meerkats and the Mongoose Family

Where meerkats fit in the animal kingdom

Scientists classify the meerkat like this:

Meerkats and rodents are both mammals, but they split at the level of order, deep in the mammal family tree. Within Carnivora, meerkats belong to the cat-like branch, Feliformia, which also includes cats, hyenas, civets, genets and the Malagasy carnivores such as the fossa. Rodents belong to a completely different group of mammals that also includes rabbits and hares as close cousins.

The meerkat is the only species in its genus, Suricata. Three subspecies are recognized, living in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and southwestern Angola.

Meerkats are mongooses

The mongoose family contains about 34 species, native to Africa, southern Asia and a small part of southern Europe. Mongooses are usually long-bodied, short-legged animals with pointed faces, small rounded ears and long tails, and many hunt insects, rodents, reptiles and birds. The meerkat is one of the smallest, weighing about 0.6–1 kg (1.3–2.2 lb).

Genetic studies divide the mongooses into two main lineages: mostly solitary species, such as the yellow mongoose and the Egyptian mongoose, and highly social species. The meerkat belongs to the social group, along with the banded mongoose, the dwarf mongooses and the kusimanses. Living in cooperative groups with sentinels and shared babysitting is typical of this branch.

The name causes some of the confusion. “Meerkat” comes from Afrikaans and Dutch, and despite the “kat” ending the animal is neither a cat nor a monkey. In Afrikaans the word has also been used for other small burrowing mongooses, such as the yellow mongoose.

Teeth: the clearest difference

The quickest way to tell a carnivoran from a rodent is to look at the teeth.

• Rodents have a single pair of large, chisel-like incisors in each jaw that grow throughout life and must be worn down by gnawing. They have no canine teeth, and a wide gap, called a diastema, separates the incisors from the cheek teeth.
• Meerkats have 36 teeth in a full carnivoran set: small incisors, pointed canine teeth, and sharp premolars and molars with pointed cusps for crunching hard-shelled insects and gripping small prey. Their incisors do not grow continuously.

A meerkat’s skull also has the large, forward-facing eye sockets of a hunter that finds prey by sight and smell, rather than the gnawing jaws of a seed or plant eater.

Diet: a hunter, not a gnawer

Most rodents are plant eaters or omnivores that feed heavily on seeds, grasses, nuts and roots. Meerkats are mainly insectivores. They dig out beetle larvae, caterpillars and termites, and catch scorpions, spiders, millipedes, lizards and small snakes, adding birds’ eggs and some plant food such as wild melons. The details are in What do meerkats eat?.

Meerkats sometimes kill and eat small rodents themselves. In a sense, a meerkat is closer to being a rodent’s predator than its cousin.

Why meerkats look like prairie dogs and ground squirrels

The confusion is understandable. Meerkats, prairie dogs and ground squirrels:

• are small, sandy or brownish, furry animals of open country;
• live in groups and dig extensive burrow systems;
• stand up on their hind legs to watch for danger;
• give alarm calls when a predator appears.

These shared habits are an example of convergent evolution: unrelated animals facing the same problems, in this case open landscapes with predators in the sky and on the ground, evolve similar solutions. Why meerkats stand upright is covered in Why do meerkats stand up?.

The two groups even meet in the Kalahari. Meerkats often share burrow systems with Cape ground squirrels, which are true rodents, and the two species generally tolerate each other. Seen side by side, the differences are clear: the squirrel has a bushy tail and gnawing teeth and eats mostly plants, while the meerkat has a thin, black-tipped tail and the teeth and diet of a small carnivore.

Other animals often mistaken for rodents

Meerkats are not alone. Several small mammals are often called rodents but are not:

• Rabbits and hares are lagomorphs, a separate order, although they are the closest living relatives of rodents.
• Hedgehogs and shrews are eulipotyphlans, insect-eating mammals.
• Hyraxes look like large guinea pigs but are distant relatives of elephants and manatees.
• Ferrets and weasels are mustelids in the order Carnivora, like the honey badger.

By contrast, many animals that do not look like “typical” rodents are true rodents, including beavers, porcupines and the capybara, the largest rodent in the world.