Mongoose ID, southern Africa? (1 Viewer)

[opisska]

Makes me wonder if there has been a local study where animals have been examined in the hand.

Would it be possible to contact that lodge to ask where they get their certainty from?

Well, the linked poster is of a genetic study and Hobatere is one of the sites. One of the illustration photos on the poster is a hill next to the waterhole in question

 

[Andy Adcock]

Well, the linked poster is of a genetic study and Hobatere is one of the sites. One of the illustration photos on the poster is a hill next to the waterhole in question

Well in that case, if you accept the split and that it definitely occurs there, you just have to convince yourself of which one of the 'Slender' group it is. Bearing in mind though, the cautionary note about 'unreliable' features in HMW.

 

[Mike Richardson]

No idea, we went to the "Roadside camp", which is on the same property, but is accessed just about 2 kms off the main road. The road towards the lodge was locked, but we have no idea whether it wouldn't be available after previous reservation.

The area around the Roadside camp is small, but nice, with the aforementioned waterhole. Btw. we found that we do have a photo of a sign from the lookout, which explicitely advertises the Kaokoland Mongoose!

So the real question is, whether the other one (1st image from 1st post) can be determined as NOT Kaokoland - which should be easy, as it is inside Etosha, thus quite far from the granite outcrops? (Unless we still don't get taxonomy right and there are some Kaokoland that are NOT Black?)

I am pretty sure that the animal in the first image is a Slender Mongoose. Even if I saw it in a rocky outcrop in the middle of the range of Black (Kaokoland) Mongoose, I would still be happy with Slender.

For comparison there are some nice images of Black Mongoose taken by my friend in the link below

https://www.mammalwatching.com/2017/12/14/namibia-2017-not-big-5/