1932) − a specimen from Mababe in northern Bechuanaland In 1811, Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger subsumed the ichneumon to the genus Herpestes. Threats A survey of poaching methods in Israel carried out in autumn 2000 revealed that the Egyptian mongoose is affected by snaring in agricultural areas. Most of the traps found were set up by Thai guest workers. Numerous dried heads of Egyptian mongooses were found in 2007 at the Dantokpa Market in southern Benin, suggesting that it is used as fetish in animal rituals. Conservation The Egyptian mongoose is listed on Appendix III of the Berne Convention, and Annex V of the European Union Habitats and Species Directive. In Israel, wildlife is protected by law, and hunting allowed only with a permit. In culture Mummified remains of four Egyptian mongooses were excavated in the catacombs of Anubis at Saqqara during works started in 2009. At the cemetery of Beni Hasan, an Egyptian mongoose on a leash is depicted in the tomb of Baqet I dating to the Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt. The American poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem as an elegy for an ichneumon, which had been brought to Haverhill Academy in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1830. The long lost poem was published in the November 1902 issue of "The Independent" magazine. In Christopher Smart's poem, Jubilate Agno, the poet's cat Jeoffry was praised in line 63: "For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land," for a purported attack on an Egyptian mongoose. The Sherlock Holmes canon also features an ichneumon the short story The Adventure of the Crooked Man, though due to Watson's description of its appearance and its owner's history in India it is likely to actually be an Indian grey mongoose. See also Ichneumon (In medieval zoology) References External links Herpestes Mammals of Ethiopia Mammals of Angola Mammals of Turkey Mongooses of Africa Mammals described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus