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almost everywhere on the plain. The society is necessary for protection, and mongooses provide babysitters for the young whose parents must leave them to forage.
The mongooses must fit into a very rigid social order, dominated completely by the “alpha” male and female, who are the breeding pair of the colony.
Rood became fascinated by the mongoose society, and was able to chart the progress of the mongooses of his study area by marking them and observing their habits. He found that the less dominant mongooses (the “babysitters”) sometimes leave their civilization to try to find a situation where they stand a better chance of eventually becoming the breeding or dominant pair.
Rood said that a male and female will sometimes leave together, or a lone mongoose will set out to find a lesspopulated society.
How does the maverick mongoose know that the new society will be receptive? Mongooses have individual scent marking, meaning that a lonely visitor can identify exactly the make-up of the unfamiliar colony, eliminating the need for unpleasant introductions.
The Roods found examples of what is called altruistic behavior among the mongoose colonies. Animals are “altruistic” when they put the good of the society
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