This lavishly illustrated title offers a unique insight into the world of this much-loved creature. Meerkats is the first book on the subject written by a professionally qualified nature conservationist. Author Grant McIlrath has over two decades worth of experience in wild meerkat research and conservation – the longest period of time that anyone in the world has spent studying these charismatic animals – and the highlights are captured here in this extraordinary collection.
Meerkats looks at subjects including Meerkat society, burrows, prey and predators, including remarkable behaviours such as baby-sitting, performing lookout duties and mobbing together to take on predators such as jackals, eagles and poisonous snakes. Meerkats are mammalian masters of multi-tasking. Other topics covered include their many vocalisations and their conservation, not least from the unsustainable explosion in the Meerkat pet trade.
Meerkats offers unique insights into not only the species, as other books have illustrated, but also the conservation challenges facing it. It also covers two of the three recognised subspecies of Meerkats – something which has not been done before in one book – and images illustrate the differences and adaptations that have evolved for different habitats. The many beautiful images all come from the author's personal archives and experiences
Known as 'The Meerkat Man' Grant McIlrath is a professionally qualified nature conservationist and internationally published wildlife research biologist. He has studied Meerkats from 1993 to the present day and appeared in numerous international Meerkat films and publications and worked as a scientific consultant for films with the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery Channel.