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All the meerkats in the study showed a clear individual preference for a certain food typ. There were however some differences between the individuals (table 1).

Table 1. The individual food preferences for the 8 meerkats. The first column/individual indicates the points of each food item totally for each individual (the total score can be a maximum of 84), the second column indicates the rank of each of the food items for that individual (if one number occurs twice it means that the food items got the same total points and thereby the same ranking). A-H indicating the individual, and in the brackets what the individual is(mother, adult male or offspring).

When comparing the individuals food preference to each other I can see that some of the individuals food preferences correlates to one and other. There is a significant positive correlation between the individuals preference lists between individuals A and C, A and G, A and H, C and F, D and G, F and G (p<0.05) and between individuals A and E, C and H (p<0.01) (table 2).

Table 2. The results from the correlation test between the individuals. The numbers above and to the right of the diagonal X (dividing the different values) show r_s -values and the numbers below and to the left of the diagonal show p-values. A-H indicate the individuals. ** =p<0.01; *=p<0.05

The meerkats preferred the animal matters with crickets at the top. Apple, cucumber and carrots were the least preferred ones with carrot at the bottom (table 3).  

Table 3. The total group preference ranking for the 9 food items. The points are the total scores of the food items during all the 28 times they were tested with all 8 meerkats (maximum score is 672; 28 tests x 3 points x 8 individuals)

A correlation test between the group preference list and the nutritional content showed that there was a strong positive correlation with protein and ash but not with any other nutrient (table 4).

Table 4. The values from the Spearman rank order correlation test. The r_s values may range from +1 (which is a perfect positive correlation) to -1 (which is a perfect negative correlation). The * indicates which nutrients in all 9 food items were tested, nutrients that lack the * do not include values for crickets and zophobas. The bold text indicates significance.