Those Wild and Crazy Meerkats at the Wild Animal Park

[gatorbill-75]

I took these shots at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the lookout guy was on top of a mound while at the bottom his friends were huddling up together. I could just imagine the little lookout guy saying:

"You guys down there keep trying to break the world's record for the biggest Meerkat Ball while I, Habusu, keep my out on this suspicious looking guy with the funny white lens"

--gatorbill-75
Zenfolio | Bill Fleites Photography

 

[gatorbill-75]

Doing some internet research on this I found out that the meerkats do this for warmth in the everning right before they go into their burrows underground for the night. This shot was taken around 5PM as I was leaving the park on a failry cold day by SoCal standards.

--gatorbill-75

 

[LaFoto]

While I've seen meerkats with my own eyes in zoos, and in photos (on here, for example) and have always enjoyed the alert looks of the meerkat sentinels, I have NEVER before seen them form that meerkat ball! What fun to see it! I didn't know they were doing this. Thanks for letting us see.

 

[gatorbill-75]

While I've seen meerkats with my own eyes in zoos, and in photos (on here, for example) and have always enjoyed the alert looks of the meerkat sentinels, I have NEVER before seen them form that meerkat ball! What fun to see it! I didn't know they were doing this. Thanks for letting us see.

You are not alone, I had never seen this behavior either. They normally draw big crowds at their exhibit, but the day they were doing this the crowds were huge and everyone would ooh, and ahh with a lot of people asking why are they doing that ? Well now we know.

--gatorbill-75