Meerkats are known for their cooperative nature and sentinel behavior, living in mobs where they work together to forage and protect their young. Despite this teamwork, meerkats are one of the most lethally violent mammals on Earth. Nearly one-fifth of all meerkat deaths result from attacks by another meerkat. This high rate of internal and external aggression stems from intense competition for reproductive rights and limited resources in their arid habitat. The violence is a direct consequence of their highly structured social system and the evolutionary pressure to pass on their genes.
The Social Structure of Meerkat Mobs
A meerkat mob, which can range from two to 50 individuals, is governed by a strict, two-tiered hierarchy. At the top is a dominant male and a dominant female, often referred to as the alpha pair, who typically monopolize breeding opportunities within the group. The rest of the group consists of subordinates, often the offspring or relatives of the dominant pair, who function as non-breeding helpers.
These subordinate members play a crucial role in the group’s survival. They assist with foraging, stand guard as sentinels, and perform alloparenting duties like babysitting and feeding the dominant pair’s pups. The dominant female maintains her status through physical competition, sometimes displaying heightened levels of androgen, a hormone associated with aggressiveness. This cooperative breeding structure ensures the dominant pair’s offspring have the highest chance of survival.
Subordinates are reproductively suppressed, meaning they are largely denied the opportunity to have their own young. This suppression is enforced by the dominant female, who benefits from having a larger pool of helpers dedicated solely to her litter. This creates tension where the helpers’ self-interest in breeding conflicts directly with the dominant pair’s reproductive monopoly.
Reproductive Control and Infanticide
The most common form of lethal violence within a meerkat mob is infanticide, primarily committed by the dominant female against the pups of subordinate females. The pregnant dominant female actively seeks out and kills any offspring born to lower-ranking females to eliminate genetic competition. By removing a subordinate’s litter, the dominant female ensures that all available resources, including milk from lactating subordinates, are directed toward her own pups.
This extreme reproductive suppression is a survival strategy driven by the harsh desert environment, where raising young is costly and resources are scarce. The dominant female often takes additional steps to prevent a subordinate from breeding, such as physically evicting her from the group for the last few weeks of her pregnancy.
If a subordinate female is evicted or loses her pups to infanticide, she may return to the mob. She is often coerced into wet-nursing the dominant female’s young, acting as a form of “rent” to be allowed back into the safety of the group.
Infanticide is not exclusively the domain of the dominant female. Subordinate females will also sometimes kill the pups of other subordinates, or even the dominant female’s litter. The presence of a pregnant subordinate halves the survival rate for any litter born in the group during that time. This shows that reproductive control is a complex, high-stakes struggle for genetic lineage continuation.
Fatal Territorial and Resource Disputes
Lethal aggression also frequently occurs between adult meerkats over territory and resources, most notably during intergroup conflicts. Meerkats are highly territorial, and clashes between rival mobs are common, often escalating into violent skirmishes. These boundary disputes are fundamentally about securing access to foraging grounds and burrow systems, which are finite and necessary for the group’s survival.
Interactions between groups are rarely peaceful. Most encounters involve aggressive displays like the “war dance,” where meerkats puff up their fur and raise their tails to appear larger. Although most aggressive encounters end with one group retreating, about 9% of observed interactions result in a physical fight where at least one meerkat is killed. The larger group or a group with young pups is significantly more likely to win these contests, reinforcing the success of large, resource-rich mobs.
Internal aggression can also lead to the death or forced eviction of subordinate adults. Conflict between the dominant and subordinate females over breeding rights frequently results in the subordinate being driven out of the territory. Evicted individuals face high mortality rates due to predation, starvation, or being killed while attempting to join a new mob. Established groups are highly aggressive toward newcomers, making survival outside the mob extremely difficult.