Ring-tailed Mongoose, Ranomafana, Madagascar
Opening day 2 in Ranomafana, our first full day at the camp site after having arrived there in the late afternoon the day before.
It's a very poor, moved shot but still wanted to share it to discuss this beautiful, sneaky animal. After the Fossa, this is one of Madagascar's top predators. Like all mongoose, it's very opportunistic. It hunts, scavenges, steals and is not picky about its food. It is often found around human settlements, especially looking for meat left-overs.
A far more interesting observation we had in 2015, where we saw an adult and young sharing a meal. It's interesting because very little (or nothing) is known about their parenting behavior.
The ring-tailed mongoose is a euplerid that lives on the island of Madagascar. There is actually much disagreement about the placement of Madagascar's carnivores including the ring-tailed mongoose, within the phylogenetic tree. Recent molecular work by Anne Yoder et al. reported in the journal "Nature" suggests that the Malagasy Carnivora evolved from a single herpestid ancestor.
