Darn! I'm on barnesy and can't edit!They're working alright on the newsgroup:
groups.msn.com/YodasEars/
Though i'm not the world's best photographer!
(groups.msn.com/YodasEars/
Though i'm not the world's best photographer!
Jahled Three shades of black,
Thu 16 Aug 2007, 11:27,
archived)
\o/"Meerkat" is an English loan word from Afrikaans. The name came from Dutch but by misidentification. Dutch meerkat and German Meerkatze mean "guenon", a monkey of the Cercopithecus genus. The word "meerkat" looks like Dutch for "sea cat", but the suricata is not in the cat family, and neither suricatas nor guenons are attracted to lakes; the word possibly started as a Dutch adaptation of a derivative of Sanskrit markaþa मर्कट = "monkey", perhaps in Africa via an Indian sailor onboard a Dutch East India Company ship. The traders of the Dutch East India Company were likely familiar with monkeys, but the Dutch settlers attached the name to the wrong animal at the Cape. The suricata is called stokstaartje = "little stick-tail" in Dutch and Kleines Erdmännchen = "little earth-man" in German.
According to African popular belief (mainly in the Zambian/Zimbabwean region), the meerkat is also known as the sun angel, as it protects villages from the moon devil or the werewolf which is believed to attack stray cattle or lone tribesmen
(According to African popular belief (mainly in the Zambian/Zimbabwean region), the meerkat is also known as the sun angel, as it protects villages from the moon devil or the werewolf which is believed to attack stray cattle or lone tribesmen
Prof UnderCover evitable,
Thu 16 Aug 2007, 11:32,
archived)
Wow!Given their constant state of obvious alertness, you can see how they could have been adopted into local folklore!
I seem to extremely busy at work, this is terrible!
(I seem to extremely busy at work, this is terrible!
Jahled Three shades of black,
Thu 16 Aug 2007, 11:42,
archived)