My question's probably been answered on this list already, but if so, I
missed it.  I recently saw a program about mongooses, and they looked and
acted quite a bit like ferrets, except the mongooses spent much more time
sitting upright, and had shorter hair.  Is a mongoose related to a ferret?
My Webster's New World Dictionary just says that a mongoose is a civetlike
carnivore that kills snakes and rodents.  So I looked up "civet" and it
turns out to be a catlike, musky carnivore from Africa and South Asia.
Both these animals are referred to as being "Old World." However, the
ferret is just defined as a form of European polecat, without being
designated Old World or New World or Out of This World etc.
 
Anyway, before I go off on a tangent about the inadequacies of my
dictionary, ARE ferrets and mongooses related?  And what about meercats?
Unless I'm spelling it wrong, the closest my dictionary gets to "meercat"
is "meerschaum pipe."  Of course, when you translate "ferret" into French
on a certain Internet translation site, and then back to English again, it
comes out "pipecleaner," so maybe there IS some connection...
 
Confused As Usual,
Signe
[Posted in FML issue 2726]