The meerkats of the Kalahari Meerkat Project are all individually identified. It may seem like a huge task to know each and every of the 290 meerkats but the process of identification is structured. The project's normally first procedure of identifying the animals are with codes. The meerkats are given names but only after they have been coded. The purpose of the code name is to differentiate those meerkats within the Van Zyl'srus population from those from outside the study area. Meerkats from outiside the KMp study area to enter the Kuruman River Reserve and occassional immigrations into established study groups is not uncommon.