On the Meerkat Manor
NG Kids visits the Meerkat Manor to find out some amazing facts about the Whiskers and Zappa tribes of meerkats! Here's our top meerkat facts:
- Meekat Manor is filmed in the Kalahari Desert, Africa, which covers 900,000 square kilometres of land
- Specialist camera equipment is used to film Flower, Mozart, Rocket Dog and the rest of the Meerkat Manor stars. This includes mini infra-red cameras inside the burrows and a 7m-tall crane that has a remote-controlled camera platform
- Meerkats reach up to 35cm in height and are actually mongooses rather than cats!
- It takes 25 weeks to film 13 episodes of Meerkat Manor
- Meerkats live in colonies of up to 40 in number - and spend most of their time standing on their hind legs, to warm up in the sun and look for predators!
- Meerkat is a South African Dutch word meaning 'lake cat' since meerkats are often found near stretches of water.
- The filmmakers work closely with scientists at Cambridge University, who have been studying meerkats in the Kalahari since 1993.
- Meerkat Manor executive producer, Caroline Hawkins, says the fights between the rival meerkat gangs are the most difficult thing to film. "You never know when or where they are going to happen and the meerkats move so fast that it's hard to capture."
- Meerkats dig hundreds of holes looking for insects and roots to eat, moving about 50 times their own weight
Look out for Meerkat Manor Series 3 on DVD out now!