Our ‘little earth man’ Nino, (please pass me the translation from the German form, Erdmännchen), has done it! He has left the natal group.
Nino has successfully defended his PhD thesis at the end of November and is now ready for a new adventure…out there.
Typically meerkats disperse in small coalitions of two or more individuals, for they find strength in the number. Our previous dispersing trio proves it! Nino went alone, which is quite unusual for meerkats. So he may come back home, like the majority of the single dispersers or, being a very resilient disperser, he may also be successful alone elsewhere. According to what is written in his thesis (shall we really trust his work…?), the task will now be to find some conspecifics of the opposite sex and a territory to settle…
Congrats and good luck for the future, Nino!
