lemme "esplain" the difference between a meerkat and a mongoose .....

i am watching this nature film, and its about some meerkats, and of course no such film would be complete without a shot of the community standing straight up, watching keenly for the approach of danger.  the little buggers stand straight up, and watch for as far as they can see, and it is not just one designated lookout but the whole damned bunch of them.  they survey every direction.

they have good reason to be vigilant, because all sorts of critter want to eat them ...  they must be pretty tasty.  and, sure enough this snake come slithering along, and the announcer identifies it as some sort of cobra.   i forget the exact kind, but, what damned difference does it make if one shows up on the entrance to your burrow, it causes a lot of commotion.  a snake is a snake, in the grass or in the dust.

so, a delegation goes out to meet the snake, and they are chirping at it and carrying on.  a delaying tactic.  a couple of them make some feints at the snake, but nothing serious, cause he doesn't get too worked up about it.   he is big enough that he will handle them without much difficulty.

but, while the snake is putting, well, the snake eye on the several mongooses confronting him,  trying to intimidate them, the rest of the community is hauling all the young pups/kittens/whatever out the back of the burrow, carrying them in their mouths because the little ones cannot walk on their own.  it appears the whole clan is used to this drill, because, they carry it out swiftly and surely, and in just a bit the burrow is empty and has moved into another burrow.

pretty soon the matter is down to one meerkat confronting the cobra, but the cobra is relatively nonplussed, and in no apparent hurry.  he is pretty confident that he is gonna get feed.  but, the little meerkat puts up quite a fuss, all the while staying out of the reach of the cobra's strike, which is considerable.

well, off in the distance, a mongoose sticks his head out of the burrow, his attention taken up by all the meerkat chatter at the snake.  and, in an instant, the mongoose is up and out of his burrow, running full blast to the commotion, and when he gets there he runs right up to the cobra, between the cobra and the meerkat.  and, the mongoose sets up shop.

and, the fight begins.   the mongoose begins pressing the snake, egging it on to a strike, and then several strikes, and edging closer to the cobra and eliciting longer and faster strikes, the mongoose always avoiding the fangs of the big snake.  (i was watching to see the mongoose's eyes turn red, like in riki tiki tavi, ... , but, nope.)   this goes on for a bit, and the snake begins to tire, and his strikes slow down and become less frequent.

the mongoose has been waiting for this.  eventually the snake's vigilance fades a bit, and he leaves a portion of his body, a coil of his length, just out of the reach of his strikes, and his fangs.  and, in that instance and without a fraction of a second's passing, the mongoose jumps to the snake, grabs his body, and chomps that snake repeatedly, as hard as he can.  the snake understands what is happening, and strikes toward where the mongoose has been, but he had backed away several feet, as fast as he covered the distance to attack the snake.

now, the mongoose did not just sort of nibble daintily on the cobra.  he chomped him, hard, his jaws wide open and crushing down on the snake, three or four times before the snake can react.  (the mongoose has a pretty impressive set of chompers, really.) the mongoose does not attack or close the distance again, he knows that he has hurt the snake, and badly.   pretty soon, the snake slithers away, looking for a better day.

and, the mongoose and the meerkat walk over to each other, and stand, and just, by all appearances, commune for a bit over a common enemy being vanquished.***  and, then, they go their separate ways.

and, that my friends, is the difference between a mongoose and a meerkat.  one is the heavy duty version of the other, built and equipped to handle adversaries his equal, and adversaries that simply have too much throw weight for the smaller meerkat to handle.  both are game for the fight.   and, i have no doubt, that had the cavalry not come charging in, that the little meerkat would have sacrificed himself to protect the colony and its young, perhaps his young.  and, had the cobra vanquished that meerkat, that another would have stood up and fought the cobra as well, until his death.

(biologically speaking, that's what males are for.  you ever watch the difference between a mature male lion and the females, dealing with wild dogs and hyenas?)

that, my friends, is the precise difference between a bradley fighting vehicle, and an m-1 abrams tank, or a leopard ii tank.  when the bradley's get to the ukraine, they will fight the russians and sacrifice themselves, if necessary, to carry the fight to the russians.  but, the bradley's are no match for a t-80, or a t-90.  oh, they will handle the russians armored fighting vehicles, and i suspect do better than alright, but they cannot go one on one against the heavies.   and, in my estimation, they will not handle the job of breaking through the russian static line in the northeast of the ukraine.

the ukrainians need the mongooses, they need the abrams and leopard ii tanks.  they need them to handle the ruZZians cobra snakes, they need them to confront, take on, and defeat the russian heavy tanks.  the ukrainians cannot afford to use the bradleys in successive battles against the t-80's and t-90's, and i don't give a shit what the american joint chief's of staff say, this will simply result in the loss of ukrainian lives and a whole mess of fighting vehicles.   the bradleys are not tanks, just as a meerkat is not a mongoose.  the ukraine needs all the heavy duty mongoose weapons it can get.

it is simple as that.   as simple as life or death.  the difference between victory and defeat.

john jay @ 01.22.2023

*** it turns out, as i learn when i am checking spelling and such, that meerkats are a smaller branch of the mongoose family.  welter weights, and heavy weights, cut from the same skin and fur, just that the mongooses have more muscles, sinew and fight stuffed into theirs.  a good big mongoose is handier than a good little mongoose, when the fight gets big.  that's the nature of the game.

i am ashamed that the americans and germans have not figured this out.

Comments

[Paul Albers]

The first time my wife and I watched that same fight so many
years ago she said I want one.This was early in our marriage,
I never asked her what her choice was and she never mentioned it again. As we have been married 45 years she must have been talking about the Meerkat.

[Drew458]

OTOH, if the meerkats had a supply of nice sharp little axes ... :-)

[jj]

oh, drew, you made me laugh out loud, first time in a long time.  how about little lances and/or pikes?

it was kind of shocking to see that mongoose lay the chompers on that cobra:  sort of gave the word masticate a new meaning.  he bit that damned thing, hard, about 3 or 4 times, and then bounced away to regard his handiwork, before the cobra knew what hit him.   it would be like you or me sitting on a big pin cushion, with the pointy ends sticking out, prominently.    that mean old snake just sort of slithered off, his dignity hat askew.     (literally, thoroughly deflated.)   laughing.