Ongava is home to numerous endemic mammal, bird, reptile and plant species. But among mammals, only one is a carnivore and it is the black mongoose (Galerella nigrata). This small mongoose (<1kg, ~70cm long including the tail) looks very similar to the slender mongoose (Galerella sanguinea), but while the colour of the latter ranges from dark brown to orange red, the former is simply black. It was long thought that the black mongoose was a subspecies of the slender mongoose, but genetic analyses have now classified it as its own species. We rarely see black mongooses on Ongava, so we were delighted to find a few shots of this one on our camera trap deployed at Suiderkruis waterhole in September 2019!
