The banded mongoose is found in large parts of East Africa, including most of Kenya and Tanzania, South-Central Africa and in the savannas of West Africa. It has grayish/brown fur and brown to black horizontal bars across the back. Compared to the rest of the body, the snout and limbs are darker and the underparts are lighter.
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| Banded mongoose. Photo by Jack Duckworth |
It eats beetles, millipedes, termites, birds eggs, small rodents and fruit, and lives in colonies of 15 to 20, unlike most mongoose which are solitary.
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| Banded mongoose in Serengeti NP. Photo by John Mirau. |
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| Photo by Esmee Tooke |
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| Photo by Mark Edwards. |
Interestingly, in Kenya, they have been found to forage with baboons and removing parasites from warthogs. We saw them on a number of occasions, but by far the best observations were in the Serengeti, where they have their highest density.
Mongooses (mongeese?) remind me of Kipling's story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," and so I've always associated them with India, where the story takes place. Fun to see them in Africa.
ReplyDeleteWe had them in Hawaii, so I also associate them with the Big Island where I saw a lot of them.
DeleteI thought they were an Indian native, too. The warthogs must love them.
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