Meerkat (Suricata suricatta) is a mongoose species from South Africa. Insects are the primary food sources of their diet. Meerkat lives in groups of 2?30 individuals with a developed social structure. The group consists of a dominant pair and a different number of helpers of both sexes, which are involved in various forms of cooperation, for example care for cubs, guard service and maintaince of burrow. Meerkats are at risk of predation by mammalian predators, avian predators and snakes. One meerkat always seems to be a sentry and stands guard to keep the gang safe. When the guard senses danger they give a warning bark and the other members run for cover into their burrow. This study was done from June to September 2011 in zoo in Jihlava on a group of meerkats, which consisted of 13 individuals. There was used the method of direct observation by a scanning behaviour (behaviour sampling). Observation was specialized on sentinel behaviour. The main aim of this work was evaluate the results of observation and then compare this results with behaviour in the wild. By monitoring was demonstrably found, that dominant individuals contributed to guarding more frequently and the longest time and the juveniles contributed at least. There wasn´t set order in guarding. The most often was individually guarding or guarding in a group of 2 or 3 individuals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:136698 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | ZÍTKOVÁ, Jana |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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