EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

The "Stealthy Skunk" of Africa

White-tailed Mongoose (Ichneumia albicauda), Family Herpestidae
Mt. Kenya, Kenya

Explanation:  It is a dark moonless night on the slopes of Mt. Kenya in tropical east Africa.  The forests are alive with the bizarre calls of tree hyraxes.  A large elephant herd has come out to drink at the waterhole, then has slipped back into the blackness of the forest.

During daylight, this artificially enlarged waterhole attracts
ungulates, primates, and birds of many kinds.
Notice the central island, cleverly shaped into the African
continent, even with Madagascar off its eastern coast.

Presently, in the dim light of our lodge, I spot two silent forms slinking across the grass, below.  These are White-tailed Mongooses, out to forage for insects and small prey.  

This species is entirely nocturnal, and usually solitary.  Yet here are two.

White-tailed Mongooses are the largest of the mongoose family and sport a bushy white tail, dark legs, and grizzled coat (darker in western Africa forms).  

They are the "stealthy skunks" of Africa, having strong anal scent glands they use to repel predators, as well as sporting digging claws and a general form similar to their western hemisphere skunk counterparts, although skunks and mongooses are in very different and distinct mammal families.  And there are no true skunks in Africa. 

Why are these two White-tailed Mongooses so tightly associated?

Note the very slender tail on one of them.
No resource I have found explains such differences in tail morphology.

Here, you can better see the difference in tail structure between these two.
Sources agree that there is no sexual dimorphism in this species;
that is, adult males and females are alike in appearance.
Thus, I presume that the narrow-tailed individual is a juvenile,
an offspring of what is likely the bushier-tailed mother, to the left.

Mom is probably still teaching junior the art of foraging for bugs.

Although White-tailed Mongooses are not commonly observed because of their secretive nature, their populations are widespread in Africa and the southern Middle East, and likely secure.  Still, little is known of their reproductive biology and other aspects of its ecology.

White-tailed Mongooses likely provide a useful ecological service by potentially keeping down populations of pest insects.