Herpestids are found in a wide variety of habitats, ranging from desert to tropical forest, feeding on rats, mice, snakes, lizards, eggs, and insects. Some species are semiaquatic, readily entering the water to feed on fish, crabs and other aquatic organisms.
Mongooses have been introduced to a number of places, usually to help control snakes and rodent pests. Unfortunately, this has rarely, if ever worked, and the introduced mongooses have generally been a worse problem than the creatures they were introduced to control.