As part of the Advanced Higher Biology course S6 pupils learn about how the behaviour of non-human animals is measured and recorded. This year former pupil Laura Meldrum (class of 2009) visited to speak to our classes about the study of meerkats. Laura spent several years as the Meerkat Project Manager, working in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa with volunteer research assistants. She drew on her wealth of experience to give a fascinating presentation to the pupils on meerkat ethology. This included insights into meerkat social behaviour, dietary preferences and how to tell one meerkat from another. Laura's talk and video clips will have helped our pupils to see how the concepts of ethograms and methods of individual marking apply in a real-world context.