- Fact 2 - Description: The mongoose
has a long sleek body, long faces, short legs, tapering tails
and short fur with a gray or brown streak or pattern in gray or
brown
- Fact 3 - The mongoose has a similar
appearance to the weasel or a meercat. The meerkat is the mongoose family. Mongooses tend to stand on their hind
legs to survey their surroundings
- Fact 4 - Some types of mongoose are
nocturnal while others emerge during daylight hours
- Fact 5 - The mongoose is very fast
enabling them to move so quickly that they can avoid strikes
from a snake
- Fact 6 - Often live in burrows
- Fact 7 - Mongooses have
non-retractile claws meaning that they cannot draw back their
own claws
- Fact 8 - Mongoose stats and
facts
- Weight: 340 gm to 5 kg (12 oz to 11
lb)
- Length: 7 to 25 inches (18 to 64
cm)
- Mongoose long, tapering bushy tail:
6 to 21 inches (15 to 53 cm)
- Habitat:
plains and forests
- Lifespan: 20 years
- Speed: Up to 37 mph (60 km/hr)
- Diet: Mongoose are carnivores eating mainly
insects, beetles, worms, snails, lizards, snakes and frogs
- Fact 9 - A Mongoose can make a
high-pitched noise, known as ‘giggling’, when mating
- Fact 10 - In the Rudyard Kipling
fictional story a mongoose called Rikki-Tikki-Tavi saves a human
family from two deadly cobras
- Fact 11 - A Mongoose has a large
anal scent gland, used for territorial marking
- Fact 12 - It will allow a snake to strike
repeatedly while it quickly dodges the blows until the snake
will become exhausted and the mongoose will kill it by crushing
its skull
- Fact 13 - The cobra is four times
the size of a mongoose
- Fact 14 - The different species
vary in size ranging from less than 1 foot to nearly three foot
in height
- Fact 15 - The female gives birth
once a year to a litter of about 4 pups
- Fact 16 - The largest is the
white-tailed mongoose and is about 40 in (1 m) long and weighs
about 9 lb (4 kg)
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