between mating rivals and territorial rivals. Individuals within groups are rivals for mates while those from neighboring groups are competitors for food and resources. Hunting and diet Banded mongooses feed primarily on insects, myriapods, small reptiles, and birds. Millipedes and beetles make up most of their diet, but they also commonly eat ants, crickets, termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars and earwigs. Other prey items of the mongoose includes frogs, lizards, small snakes, ground birds and the eggs of both birds and reptiles. On some occasions, mongooses will drink water from rain pools and lake shores. Banded mongoose forage in groups, but each member searches for food alone; however they work as a team when dealing with venomous snakes such as cobras. They forage in the morning for several hours and then rest in the shade. They will usually forage again in the late afternoon. Mongooses use their sense of smell to locate their prey and dig them out with their long claws, both in holes in the ground and holes in trees. Mongoose will also frequent the dung of large herbivores since it attracts beetles. Low grunts are produced every few seconds for communication. When hunting prey that secrete toxins, mongooses will roll them on the ground. Durable prey is thrown on hard surfaces. Reproduction Unlike in most other social mongoose species, all females in a banded mongoose group can breed. They all enter oestrus around 10 days after giving birth, and are guarded and mated by 1–3 dominant males. The dominant males monitor the females and aggressively defend them from subordinates. While these males do most of the mating, the females often try to escape from them and mate with other males in the group. A dominant male will spend 2–3 days guarding each female. A guarding male will snap at, lunge at or pounce on any males that come near. A non-guarding male may follow a guarding male and his female and may face this aggression. Non-guarding males mate in a more secretive way. Gestation lasts 60–70 days. In most breeding attempts, all females give birth either on the same day or within a few days. Litters range from two to six pups and average 4. For the first four weeks of life, pups stay in the dens where they form an exclusive relationship with a single helper or escort, whose genetic relationship with the pups is unknown. These helpers