One legendary matriarch, named Mabili, succeeded in birthing eighty-one pups during a decade-long reign. Given that only one in every six or seven meerkats will get to reproduce effectively, the variance in breeding success for female meerkats is even more profound than for your average antagonistic alpha male. Clutton-Brock told me that the most successful red deer stag he ever documented only ever fathered about twenty-five offspring during its lifetime,
