It Is Always Bulking Season For Lady Meerkats

Not Geography Geography Lesson 2 

Meerkat Social Science 

Anyone who watched Meerkat Manor as a child, will hopefully enjoy this week's topic - the super interesting and unexpected social system of meerkats. It's a random one indeed. So:

Meerkats are the ultimate feminists. 

They live in matriarchal systems, where the whole family is ruled by a dominant female, who normally is responsible for birthing all the pups, and keeps everyone else in check. Dominance is the ruling factor in meerkat society, and the matriarch must keep all the other females submissive by force to remain top-kat. 

The Matriarch has thrown a seven; now what?

This is where the 'bulking' comes in! When the matriarch dies (probably from becoming a tasty little snack), the group needs a new leader ASAP. The role is filled firstly by the eldest remaining female, but because meerkats are born in litters of several pups, there is most likely going to be a few females all the same age. So to decide who will be the matriarch, the same-age females - probably sisters - have to fight for the top spot. And when I say fight, I mean really fight... like meerkat MMA. And so this is why the lady meerkats have to keep as a high a body mass as possible, because at any time their leader may be killed and they will have to fight to be her replacement, and the larger they are the better chance they have of winning. 

The Meerkat idyll is shattered.

Because the same-age females are under such pressure to maintain high body mass, their life spans are cut short *sob*. Just as a human would suffer poor health if they had to constantly worry about taking part in a Gladiator-esque showdown at any moment, the strain on the lady meerkats' bodies is significant. 

Turns out Meerkat Manor was not so much of a nice family show, but is actually more like a Margaret Atwood novel. Still cute though - 12/10.