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American Zoologist 1974 14(1):415-426; doi:10.1093/icb/14.1.415
© 1974 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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Ontogeny of Playful Contact in a Social Mongoose, the Meerkat, Suricata suricatta

C. WEMMER and M. J. FLEMING
Chicago Zoological Park Brookfield, Illinois 60513

Playful contact interaction within a captive family of six meerkats was observed using a rotating focal animal observation method over a 5-month period. Ten interaction patterns are described. The mother interacted playfully with her family members at a low rate while the father and young initeracted together far more than with the mother. The parents sniffed all family members about equally, but all offspring sniffed the father far more than they sniffed the mother. Dyadic interaction sequences between the youngsters incorporated two patterns that infrequently occurred in fatheryoung sequences. Eighteen-week profiles of biting and forelimb contact displayed large oscillations in rate for each animal, but there was little inter-individual concurrence in each pattern and little similarity in profiles between patterns. Playful interaction was depressed and fluctuations dampened following the birth of an ill-fated litter. Sniffing fluctuated over a smaller amplitude than either of the other two patterns. During the 5-month observation period, only the father and one youngster were consistent in their choice of recipients of forelimb contact; the other three youngsters altered the proportion of contact delivered to their companions. The youngsters did not exhibit significant changes in the body targets of biting over the time period of the study.


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