köken: From Erde (“earth, ground”) + Männchen (“little man”). The original sense is that of a gnome, though the word was also used metaphorically or jocularly for animals in some dialects, e.g. for the mole. The use for “meerkat” has only become established in scientific use since the 1960s, but is older in Namibian German, where it also referred to the similar-looking Cape ground squirrel (Xerus…
meerkat (Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs)