Professor Anne Rasa, scientist who revealed the complex social structure in mongoose colonies – obituary
Her studies in Kenya revealed that no other mammalian society has such a high degree of mutual caring and division of labour
By Telegraph
24 November 2020
She retired to a farm in the Kalahari which she turned into a sanctuary for animals including meerkats
Professor Anne Rasa, who has died aged 80, was an ethologist (expert in animal behaviour) whose studies of the social behaviour of the dwarf mongoose in the Taru Desert, Kenya, were published in numerous papers and books including the popular Mongoose Watch: A Family Observed (1985).
Having studied the animals in captivity in Germany, she went to live in the desert to follow a group in the wild, concluding that no other mammalian society, bar that of humans, has such a high degree of mutual caring and division of labour.
Each mongoose group, she found, is led by a matriarch who chooses her own mate and is the only female allowed to rear young. Her mate leads the group into battle, teaches the young to forage and has the job of preventing illicit sex among other group members, a role made problematic by the fact that during the five days the matriarch is in season, he mounts her more than 2,000 times. Other group members are allocated jobs as guards, babysitters, peacemakers and so on.
“They woo, worry, rage and play; form friendships and sexual liaisons; practice deception and persuasion; and at times behave with striking thoughtfulness for others,” Anne Rasa wrote.
Professor Anne Rasa, who has died aged 80, was an ethologist (expert in animal behaviour) whose studies of the social behaviour of the dwarf mongoose in the Taru Desert, Kenya, were published in numerous papers and books including the popular Mongoose Watch: A Family Observed (1985).
Having studied the animals in captivity in Germany, she went to live in the desert to follow a group in the wild, concluding that no other mammalian society, bar that of humans, has such a high degree of mutual caring and division of labour.
Each mongoose group, she found, is led by a matriarch who chooses her own mate and is the only female allowed to rear young. Her mate leads the group into battle, teaches the young to forage and has the job of preventing illicit sex among other group members, a role made problematic by the fact that during the five days the matriarch is in season, he mounts her more than 2,000 times. Other group members are allocated jobs as guards, babysitters, peacemakers and so on.
“They woo, worry, rage and play; form friendships and sexual liaisons; practice deception and persuasion; and at times behave with striking thoughtfulness for others,” Anne Rasa wrote.
This thoughtfulness manifested itself, for example, in the group’s treatment of a member who became ill with chronic kidney disease and lost the ability to climb. The entire group gave up their preference for sleeping on elevated objects and joined their sick friend on the ground. When foraging, they slowed their search for food so that the afflicted mongoose could keep up.
Olwen Anne Elisabeth Phillips was born on April 28 1940, in the Rhondda Valley, Wales, the daughter of squadron leader Richard Phillips and his wife Olwen. After taking a BSc from Imperial College she won a Nato scholarship to research aggression in tropical fish. She took an MSc from the University of Hawaii, followed, in 1970, by a PhD from London University.
From 1970 to 1974 she worked at the Max-Planck Insitute of Behavioural Psychology under Konrad Lorenz. It was there that she decided to study the dwarf mongoose after she learnt that nothing was known about the species.
From 1975 to 1981 she was a scientific assistant at Marburg University, and then moved to the University of Bayreuth with a scholarship to carry out her field studies on dwarf mongoose in the Taru Desert. Lorenz wrote the forward to Mongoose Watch.
In the late 1980s Anne Rasa moved to Pretoria University in South Africa as an associate professor of ethology.
There she began research on yellow mongooses in the Kalahari Desert; she concluded that diet determines whether they live as solitary animals or in a group. When eating large food items such as birds, snakes and geckos, it was better for them to hunt alone: “But if you specialise in grubs, you need someone to watch your back as birds of prey are mongooses’ main predator.”
In 1991 she returned to Germany as associate professor of ethology at the University of Bonn, where, as well as her continuing work on mongooses, she studied the desert beetle Parastizopus armaticeps, a monogamous species in which parents collaborate to rear their young.
After her retirement in 2000, she returned to South Africa, where she bought a farm at the southern end of the Kalahari Desert. She turned it into a nature reserve and sanctuary for rescuing and rehabilitating desert animals, mainly meerkats, many of them orphaned or confiscated from the illegal pet trade.
Her marriage to Ponciano Cruz Rasa was dissolved and she is survived by two daughters and a son.
Anne Rasa, born April 28 1940, died November 15 2020
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