The Mob is settling down again

Today`s weather was pretty mixed, high humidity and smaller tunderstorms in the mountains.
When the sun came through in the early evening I took me and my bike outside.

When I arrived, Stubby Tail was on guard duty on the bigger lookout hill and Sayuri and Snoutie were competing for invisible mice on the former lookout hill, which is sort of molten down to a small heap.

Flat Ears was napping in the sun in the usual meerkat-style furball position, which means with his head between his legs. Would be very uncomfortable for a human, unless you`re a Yogi.

I had brought some extra small cherry tomatoes for which the meerkats are really crazy.

I threw one tomato in the general direction of Flat Ear, but he did not notice and slept on.
The second tomato caught Flat Ears on the back and he woke up to explore this interruption.
He wolfed down his tomato in two bites ;-)

Möfzi discovered the first tomato, which had roled into a crevice in the ground. She had not started on the tomato yet, when Snoutie joined her, trying to snatch it away.

Today I realized that the youngsters will sometimes still make begging calls, or if frustrated they will start barking. The begging calls will *sometimes* still work with Möfzi, but not today.

The turmoil starting in the crevice attracted Caruso first and then Sayuri also joined in. Everybody was pressing against everybody, with Möfzi on the bottom and the youngsters in a furry pile on top, kicking, chattering and trying to pry themselves between Möfzi and the tomato. I think Möfzi won.

This behaviour is what we call "Stopfbällchen" in German, actually I can`t think of a good translation for this word, maybe Christian will come up with something?

I was really angry that I forgot to bring my camera!

Everybody looks healthy so far.

Möfzi's fur is better, the unkempt patches are gone and she has gained weight. Her legs are pretty stiff, but she can still defend her food and will do a hipslam, if necessary.

The girls look OK, but I saw some new tooth marks above Caruso`s right eye, which had already healed, but with the fur not re-grown yet.

Sayuri looks pretty wild, the fur on the right side of her lower jaw and her neck is still short and must have been shorn off completely for medical treatment now showing the grey skin beneath.

In comparision to her siblings, she looks smaller.

The last thing that will distinguish an adult meerkat from a juvenile is usually the size of the kat's head.

A juvenile's head is smaller and the groove in the middle is less visible.

Caruso's and Snoutie's heads already look more like those of the adult kats, whereas Sayuri's is still smaller. But as we know from the past, she will catch up.
Maybe with all this fighting going on in the group, she spent too much energy for growth.

She has found a good way standing and looking up at the same time now.

As shown in previous posts, she will stand up "sailorfashion", legs wide apart.
In the meantime she can do this while looking up and will hold this position for a couple of seconds, until she will loose her balance and sometimes still whack her chin on the pavement.

Tonight she was a bit unsteady, which is often after a long day and sometimes also when she is growing.

Until now no new dominant couple has emerged, I think we will have to wait until next spring, before this matter will be setteled.