Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — When families of banded mongooses prepare to fight, they form battle lines.

Each clan of about 20 animals stands nose to nose, their ears flattened back, as they stare down the enemy. A patch of scrubby savannah separates them, until the first animals run forward.

"Then they bunch up into writhing balls, chaotic and fast-moving, and you hear high-pitched screeches," said Michael Cant, a biologist at the University of Exeter who has been studying the species in Uganda for 25 years. "We call it mongoose warfare."

The catlike striped mammals only weigh up to 5 pounds each, but t...