The Meerkat - if any species of animal had a right to be a little irritated by the name we have gifted them, this is one. Of course, they are blithely unaware of any names we might choose to call them, but this small mammal from the heart of Africa is anything but a mere cat.
There are many interesting facts about meerkats but it is not any form of cat, even though you could be forgiven for thinking it was some sort of distant relative. In fact the word comes from Afrikaans (which is a form of Dutch) and the animal was given the name because of a misidentification. 'Kat' is indeed Dutch for cat and the word 'meer' means lake.
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