Widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, the slender mongoose occurs on the fringes of tropical forests (sometimes penetrating along roads) in West Africa, and is excluded from true desert (Hoffmann andTaylor 2013). In South Africa it is excluded from the Karoo regions; this may be due to competitive exclusion by the small grey mongoose (Skinner and Chimimba 2005). In Namibia, it characteristically occurs in woodland and savanna habitats with reasonable vegetation cover, but also extends into the eastern margins of the Namib Desert and southern Namibia where there is either sufficient vegetation or rocky terrain which offers cover.