Tanzania: Serenegeti NP – Mongooses
Mongooses are common in Subsaharan Africa, but not so easy to spot and even harder to photograph. The moment you see them, they immediately run away and hide in their borrows. We saw three species on mongoose in the Serengeti – banded mongoose (with district bands on the lower body), dwarf mongoose (living in clay borrows in quite big numbers, the smallest mongoose), and the black-tailed aka slender mongoose (these are quite large and were rapidly crossing the road). Mongooses are carnivores, hunting for lizards, invests, bird eggs, and more interestingly – snakes. Mongooses all have cell mutations that prevent snake neurotoxic venom from binding and thus are impervious to snake bites.
