Having a ball! MONGOOSES dip and dive in child's play pit as they scramble for dinner

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Just watching this frenzied feeding time is set to exhaust you!

Mongooses from Houston Zoo in Texas were filmed as they scrambled for titbits hidden at the bottom of a child's ball pit.

The nippy animals are seen frantically dipping and diving among the colored spheres as a high-octane rock track plays as the soundtrack.

Their long bushy tails are seen poking out among the balls with their bodies submerged.

At one point one of the critters breaks free from dinner time and says hello to the camera.

Standing on its hind legs, it throws an inquisitive glance at the lens.

It then returns to the feeding pit, scrambling around for a bite to eat. 

Dip and dive: Mongooses were filmed at Houston Zoo in Texas digging for their dinner in a child's ball pit

Play pals: The nippy creatures appeared to be having lots of fun as they scrambles for titbits

Keepers at Houston Zoo said they made the ball pit to encourage the mongooses to dig for food like they would in the wild.  

'We didn't know it was going to have quite the reaction that it did, we thought they would just hop in and grab the food. 

'For some reason they thought it was fun to run and jump and bury themselves in the balls,' Kevin Hodge, a curator at the park told the Houston Chronicle. 

The banded mongooses joined the zoo last year. 

In the wild, they live in central and southern Africa in a savanna habitat and are typically found around termite mounds.