>You may be correct about the dog/cat superfamily thing though. The >similarities could be superficial and, after all is said and done, all >species can trace their roots back to the same primordial ooze and those > of us with spiritual inclinations even further into the Mind/Heart of >God. I'm afraid she is correct and they are superficial. It's what's known as convergent evolution, where animals that want to take advantage of similar nieches look and act in similar ways. A popular example is how similar, physically, dolphins, ichthyosaurs and some sharks all look, because they're fast, aquatic piscavores. But one's a mammal, one's a reptile and the third is a fish. Mongooses are insectivores that live in a very similar way to weasels, but generally in areas that there are few weasels, such as Africa. One of the big differences is very few weasels are social in their behavior, but many mongooses are social, such as the popular suricat or meerkat. Being underground den animals, using latrienes comes naturally as a matter of personaly health.One thing I don't think is similar is in most social mongoose colonies, there is only one sexually active adult female and male, a 'alpha breeding pair', and the rest of the family takes care of the offspring, their sexual acitvity activly supressed. There is a complex hierarchy of possitions in the 'pack', like a wolf pack. In social weasels, such as otters, all the adults are sexually active and there isn't the same drive towards communial offspring raising by 'lesser' members of the group or hierarchy building. Ferrets are probably more like cats, social animals within the context of domestication, than mongooses (or dogs), which are social animals with strong natural family and pack drives. [Posted in FML issue 4198]