Mongooses

The Herpestidae family of tiny terrestrial carnivorous mammals includes the mongoose. The Herpestinae and the Mungotinae are the two subfamilies that make up this family today. The Mungotinae consists of 11 species native to Africa, while the Herpestinae consists of 23 live species native to Southern Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Mongooses have long bodies and faces, short legs, and long, tapering tails. They also have small, rounded ears. The majority have grizzly or brindled coats, although a few have intensely marked coats that resemble mustelids in appearance. They mostly use their non-retractile claws for digging. Similar to goats, mongooses have small, ovular pupils.

There are at least four known mammalian species with mutations in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor that provide protection from snake venom, and mongooses are one of them. Their altered receptors block the binding of the neurotoxic in snake venom. They signify four distinct, independent alterations. Only in the mongoose does glycosylation play a role in this transformation.

One of the predators of hedgehogs that eat hedgehogs is mongooses. Since it is not uncommon for this hedgehog predator to go for deadly snakes like cobras, they have evolved all kinds of inventive strategies for going after prey that employ various protection mechanisms. Indian hedgehogs are typically the prey they are after. It's common to equate the mongoose's method of grabbing a hedgehog to "cracking open an egg." In order to throw a curled-up animal towards anything hard, they take a hedgehog and roll it into a ball. It is intended to "break" them, much like a shell. Another impact of this approach is to shock or harm the target until the hedgehog uncurls as a result of the pain. In this situation, the hedgehog is swiftly attacked by the mongoose, which then eats it.