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Ironically, Hakuna Matata is probably the worst advice you could give a meerkat.

Meerkats have been ranked the most murderous mammal


Daksha Rangan
Digital Reporter

Friday, September 30, 2016, 1:17 PM - Ironically, Hakuna Matata is probably the worst advice you could give a meerkat. The species has just been named the most murderous mammal known to science.

A recent study examining violent behaviour among 1,024 mammal species ranked meerkats as the most likely to kill one of their own.


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Peppy and cute as they may be, meerkats had the highest percentage of deaths caused by members of the same species -- 19.4 per cent of all meerkat deaths were caused by a member of the same species. Not too far behind was Schmidt's guenon, a type of primate.

Surprisingly, the California ground squirrel and the Dama gazelle -- which are responsible for for 11.9 and 11.8 per cent of their overall species' deaths, respectively -- beat the jaguar and the cougar, for which 11.1 and 11.7 per cent of deaths are caused by members of the same species, respectively.

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The purpose of the study was to help researchers gauge the rate of intentional killing among human when homo sapiens first evolved, The Independent reports, which totaled 2 per cent. The figure is six times more than the average among the 1,024 examined species, which was 0.3 per cent.

“Social carnivores sometimes kill members of other groups and commit infanticide when supplanting older members of the same group," scientists wrote in Nature. "Even seemingly peaceful mammals such as hamsters and horses sometimes kill individuals of their own species.”

Overall, primates showed the greatest tendency toward violence, which was linked to maintaining territory and residing within social circles. Specific types, however, like the pacific bonobo and the western gorilla, were incredibly peaceful -- both were very unlikely to choose fatal violence, at a rate of less than 0.15 per cent.

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SOURCE: The Independent

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