If you have an animal in your life, you realize that they each have very unique personalities. Just like people, some of them tend to be shy and others are very outgoing and strangers are only friends whom they haven’t met yet. It seems as if this isn’t totally true for animals that may be in our homes, such as dogs and cats. It is also true of wild animals, and sometimes it is captured in pictures so we can all appreciate that fact.
Mamekoro51 is a Japanese photographer that takes pictures of baby animals, perhaps one of the best hobbies you could ever have. He recently took a visit to Knokashira Natural Cultural Park in Musashino City, Tokyo. He absolutely loves animals, and when he came across a meerkat family with newborn pups, it was just too much to resist. He even took pictures of one of the little pups who was shy in front of the camera, at first. Take a look down through the images below or you can see more of his work on twitter.
The little meerkat looks around a corner, almost as if he is too afraid to come out.
It wasn’t long, however, before he came out to say hello.
The meerkat is in the mongoose family and they live their lives in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana as well as other areas, including South Africa.
A ‘gang’ of meerkats may have up to 20 meerkats but it’s not unusual to have up to 50.
They have a lifespan of up to 14 years in captivity, which is twice as long as they have in the wild.
Meerkats care for the young in the group. If a female has not produced their own young, they may lactate to help feed the others.
They will also protect the young from any threats.
The young meerkats observe and mimic adult behavior but they also may learn from active instruction.
For example, the adult may teach the young how to eat a scorpion without getting stung.
They seem like a nice animal but there are going to be times when they will kill young members of the group.
They may also kill the offspring of a senior member to help their own offspring have a greater status.
Meerkats may have up to four pups in a litter and they leave the borough when they are about three weeks old for the first time.
Inokashira Park Zoo is located in a suburb of Tokyo. There are many animals in the zoo, including ducks, swans, and Japanese squirrels.
Other animals at the zoo include: Asiatic elephants, rhesus monkeys, raccoons, fennecs, Japanese serows, Japanese martens, masked palm civets, Amur cats, raccoon dogs, Japanese squirrels, red-crowned cranes, Japanese birds, tropical birds, mandarin ducks and swans.
Source: Bored Panda