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Animal Weight

How much does a Meerkat weight?

It is hard to guess what a Meerkat weights. But we have the answer:

An adult Meerkat (Suricata suricatta) on average weights 730 grams (1.61 lbs).

The Meerkat is from the family Herpestidae (genus: Suricata). It is usually born with about 30 grams (0.07 lbs). They can live for up to 12.5 years. When reaching adult age, they grow up to 28.6 cm (1′ 0″). On average, Meerkats can have babies 1 times per year with a litter size of 3.

As a reference: An average human weights in at 62 kg (137 lbs) and reaches an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). Humans spend 280 days (40 weeks) in the womb of their mother and reach around 75 years of age.

The average adult weight of a Meerkat is 730 grams (1.61 lbs)

The meerkat (Suricata suricatta) or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail and a brindled coat pattern. The head-and-body length is around 24–35 cm (9.4–13.8 in), and the weight is typically between 0.62 and 0.97 kg (1.4 and 2.1 lb). The coat is light grey to yellowish brown with alternate, poorly defined light and dark bands on the back. Meerkats have foreclaws adapted for digging and have the ability to thermoregulate to survive in their harsh, dry habitat. Three subspecies are recognised.Meerkats are eusocial, and form packs of two to 30 individuals each that occupy home ranges around 5 km2 (1.9 sq mi) large. There is a social hierarchy—generally dominant individuals in a pack breed and produce offspring, and the nonbreeding, subordinate members provide altruistic care to the pups. They live in rock crevices in stony, often calcareous areas and in large burrow systems in plains. The burrow systems, typically 5 m (16 ft) in diameter with around 15 openings, are large underground networks consisting of two to three levels of tunnels. These tunnels are around 7.5 cm (3.0 in) high at the top and wider below, and extend up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) into the ground. Burrows have moderated internal temperatures and provide a comfortable microclimate that protects meerkats in harsh weather and at extreme temperatures. Meerkats are active during the day, mostly in the early morning and late afternoon; they remain continually alert and retreat to burrows (or ‘boltholes’) on sensing danger. They use a broad variety of calls to communicate among one another for different purposes, for example to raise alarm on sighting a predator. Primarily insectivorous, meerkats feed heavily on beetles and lepidopterans, though they also include amphibians, arthropods, small birds, reptiles and plant material in their diet. Breeding occurs round the year, with peaks during heavy rainfall; after a gestation of 60 to 70 days a litter of three to seven pups is born.Commonly found in arid, open habitats with little woody vegetation, meerkats occur in southwestern Botswana, western and southern Namibia, northern and western South Africa; the range barely extends into southwestern Angola. With no significant threats to the populations, the meerkat is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Meerkats are widely depicted in television, movies and other media.

Animals of the same family as a Meerkat

We found other animals of the Herpestidae family:

Animals with the same weight as a Meerkat

As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Suricata suricatta:

Animals with the same size as a Meerkat

Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Meerkat:

Animals with the same litter size as a Meerkat

Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (3) as a Meerkat:

Animals with the same life expectancy as a Meerkat

Completely different animals, but becoming as old as a Meerkat: