A Checklist To The 7 Mongooses Of Sri Lanka

1
The Common Ceylon Grey Mongoose
The Common Ceylon Grey Mongoose, or Indian Grey Mongoose, is fearless with snakes, its kill strategy focused on tiring the snake by tempting it to make bites it easily avoids. Its thick grizzled iron-grey fur and neuro transmitting receptors leave it immune to snake venom. Each individual hair is beautifully ringed with creamy white and black markings. It is little more than 32 inches nose to tail and it lives right across the island, often in pairs, eating fruit, roots, and small animals. It lives for around seven years, breading twice yearly and producing up to four cubs, who emerge from eggs, like all mongoose babies.

2
The Common Ceylon Grey Lanka Mongoose
There are 5 sub species of grey mongoose living in India and other parts of South Asia; and whilst Herpestes Edwardsii is the one most seen in Sri Lanka, a second variant, Urva Edwardsii Lanka, has been identified as sufficiently different as to merit its classification as a subspecies unique to the island. Whilst its Indian cousin lives almost anywhere, the Sri Lankan variant has a marked preference for jungle, shrublands and riverbanks habitats of 2000 meters or more.

3
The Brown Mongoose
At around 30 to 34 inches nose to tail, the Ceylon Brown Mongoose (Herpestes Fuscus Maccarthiae), is found in both Sri Lanka and India. One of three brown mongoose species here, it shares with the others a body covered in dark brown fur, black legs, and long black tufted tails. All are often third to spot as they have a marked preference for deeper cover, dark forests; and being left alone.

4
The Highland Ceylon Brown Mongoose
The Highland Ceylon Brown Mongoose (Herpestes Fuscus Flavidents) is so alike the Ceylon Brown Mongoose that only a close comparison of skull size can truly tell the two apart.

5
The Western Ceylon Brown Mongoose
The Western Ceylon Brown Mongoose (Herpestes Fuscus Rubidior). Is a heavily bodied mammal, with marginally more tawny specks along its fur than other brown mongooses.

6
The Ceylon Ruddy Mongoose
The grey brown fur of the Ceylon Ruddy Mongoose (Herpestes Smithi Zeylanicus) is reddish to the point of glowing and comes with a tail that curves sharply upwards at its tasselled tip where the fur turns to a deep and even brown. Like all mongooses it feeds day and night on anything smaller than moves – and often on larger creatures too – like land monitors. Its closest relative is found in India, Herpestes Smithii Smithii , named for the Victorian zoologist, John Gray in 1837, with the Sri Lankan variant only being separated out in 1852 by another zoologist, Oldfield Thomas. Although happily widespread, it is pathologically shy, hiding out in forest and paddy.

7
The Striped Necked Mongoose
The Striped Necked Mongoose is one of the island’s most striking mammals. A dark grey head morphs to reddish brown and grey on its neck- before blooming into a heady grizzled covering of bouffant fur that gets redder and longer the further down the body it goes. A pink nose, black legs and a reddish tail that ends in a curved tuft of black hair make up the rest of this most alluring of beasts. Widespread across Sri Lanka and southern India, it has sturdy frame and often measuring over 35r inches nose to tail – is the largest mongoose on the island. Its proclivity for calling forests its home can make sighting it a challenge.