<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Suricata suricatta (Schreber, 1776) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Meerkat range </Td> </Tr> <P> The meerkat or suricate (Suricata suricatta) is a small carnivoran belonging to the mongoose family (Herpestidae). It is the only member of the genus Suricata . Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa . A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members . In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12--14 years, and about half this in the wild . </P> <P> "Meerkat" is a loanword from Afrikaans (pronounced (ˈmɪərkat)). The name has a Dutch origin, but by misidentification . In Dutch, meerkat means the guenon, a monkey of the genus Cercopithecus . The word meerkat is Dutch for "lake cat", but although the suricata is a feliform, it is not of the cat family; the word possibly started as a Dutch adaptation of a derivative of Sanskrit markaṭa मर्कट = "ape", perhaps in Africa via an Indian sailor on board a Dutch East India Company ship . </P>

What do you call a group of meerkats