Scientific name:
Herpestes ichneumon

Natural spread:
Africa

the Indian Mungo very similar is it [or this] actual Ichneumon from Africa, that was dragged in by the human being also after Italy and Madagascar. This sallow was dun African Mungo, as the Ichneumon is also named, as "rat of the Pharaonen" known already in the old Egypt and was admired as sacred.

Shape The Ichneumon is the biggest of all Mangusten. its head-torso-length amounts until 65 cm, the tail-length by 45 cm. On the short legs, a long-stretched torso with rust-sallow colored, dense wool-hairs, from which black and yellow curled Grannenhaare jut out, sits. The tail-tassel and the legs are black.

Food Like the Mungo, also the Ichneumon is valued as Vertilger of snakes and damaging Nagern. However narrowly it itself not on this food alone but so quite catches everything, which it can reach, and doesn't stop also before the house-poultry of the people.

Way of life In its way of life and the behavior, it resembles the Mungo very much. Ichneumons live in family-associations. they rove usually followed from the female and the boy, who were born as twins or triplets after a Tragzeit of approximately 12 weeks, in the goose-march of its residential-area, all in front the male.