Their face and body are long and they have short legs and long, tapering bushy tails. Their feet have four or five digits each tipped by long, nonretractile claws adapted for digging. The meerkat is a member of the mongoose family. Most mongooses are solitary and nocturnal, but meerkats are diurnal and live in pairs or family groups. They are active and agile terrestrial mammals.
Meerkats do many activities as a group.
Instinctively they work together to ensure the survival of the group as well as each individual. In the wild, meerkats hunt as a group. They will fight off predators together and sleep together. Each meerkat is balled up right next to, or on top of another meerkat when resting. They wrestle, play, investigate, scent mark territory, bury things, and dig things up.