Baby Meerkats Need Names!

Recently, Drusillas Park in East Sussex announced the exciting news that meerkat triplets had been born. Now these tiny bundles of mischief are starting to explore, play and interact a little more, Zookeepers want to give the trio some suitable names.

The cheeky triplets are in desperate need of names and the Zookeepers would like help from the public to think of three names to suit the little fluffballs!

Drusillas is launching a competition at 8pm tonight (Tuesday 06th August) to name the meerkat babies. The triplets are inseparable, so the zoo wants to give them names that work well together, e.g. Peanut, Butter and Jelly; Chocolate, Chip and Cookie; Snap, Crackle and Pop.

All name suggestions must be gender neutral as the meerkats are too young to sex at the moment, so keepers won’t be able to determine their gender for quite some time. Anyone who wants to be in with a chance of winning should go to the Drusillas Facebook Page for details of how to enter https://www.facebook.com/drusillaspark/ . The competition will be closing on Monday 12th August at 12pm.

Meerkats have always been a popular attraction at the zoo and the adorable trio have been delighting visitors and making excellent progress.

Head Keeper, Sophie Leadbitter, commented: “We are so pleased with the new arrivals. Our visitors really love to see the baby meerkats playing and enjoying the sunshine. They are very active little ones and they playfight all the time. All good sings of healthy progress.”

“We don’t know the sex of the babies and they have not yet been named, but we are hoping to pool some inventive name suggestions soon!”

“The new little family are all doing really well. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a breeding pair at the zoo, so these triplets are a real treat for us.”

Meerkats are very social creatures, living in complex underground burrows in highly organised groups. Only one pair of meerkats will breed within a mob, giving birth to two to five young at a time. However, all the members of the group will help to look after the youngsters and share the responsibility of raising the pups.

In the wild, meerkats are native to south-west Africa and are members of the mongoose family. They have long been a favourite at Drusillas so revellers to the zoo have been thrilled by the antics of three tiny additions.

Drusillas zookeepers are looking forward to hearing all of the naming suggestions!