A mongoose is a long, furry animal with a pointy face and bushy tail. They are not rodents, despite popular belief. They belong to the Herpestidae family, which includes meerkats and civets. The Indian gray mongoose can survive a cobra attack, which few animals can, making it one of this deadly snake’s predators. Mongooses are often kept as pets in order to rid houses of rats and other pests.
Indian gray mongooses live in Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, preferring areas of thickets, broken, bushy vegetation and cultivated fields, as well as open areas, scrub and grasslands.
The Indian gray mongooses are omnivores. They are opportunistic hunters, feeding mainly on rats, mice, lizards, snakes, and beetles. They also eat ground birds and their eggs, as well as fruits, berries, and roots.
Indian gray mongooses have no fear of the sting of a scorpion. They simply pick up the scorpion and throw it between its back legs again and again onto a hard surface to break it open. They use the same technique to break open eggs. Indian gray mongooses are able to hold an egg of average size in their paws and then bite open its smaller end.
Mongooses can see fully in color, whereas most mammals can see only some colors.
Mongooses close their outer ears when they hunt in soil so that dirt and water stay out.
The Indian gray mongoose is amongst the mongooses that are legendary snake fighters. Rudyard Kipling’s short story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is about a young mongoose fighting a cobra.
An group of mongooses is a 'mongeese’ or ‘mongaggle'.
19 авг 2020
